Example printing an OBJ file on a FlashForge printer

Posted by Lorie Orum on Saturday, March 23, 2024
Example printing an OBJ file on a FlashForge printer

14.3.1 Example printing an OBJ file on a FlashForge printer

This section presents an example of working with an OBJ file: uploading it, manipulating its “PLACEMENT” on the virtual build plate, and printing it on a FlashForge Inventor II printer.

Clicking the green “UPLOAD” button (towards the upper right) on a Polar Cloud “OBJECTS” screen such as the “COMMUNITY OBJECTS screen (recall that object upload always uploads objects to your private collection of objects, no matter at which “OBJECTS” screen you click “UPLOAD”) will bring up an “UPLOAD FILES” pop-up screen such as shown in figure 14.4; select the desired OBJ file from your device and click the “UPLOAD” button (towards the lower right of the “UPLOAD FILES” screen), as in Figure 14.5.

Figure 14.4: Polar Cloud UPLOAD FILES screen

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Figure 14.5: Polar Cloud UPLOAD FILES screen: Lion_Statue.OBJ

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When the object has finished loading, you will automatically be taken to the build plate screen. With OBJ files, which often were not created with 3D printing in mind, it is common to find that the object loads with a size (SCALE), orientation (ROTATE), and position (MOVE) that need some adjustment for 3D printing. For instance, see Figure 14.6 which shows the initial view of the build plate when the Lion_Statue.OBJ file is first loaded: the “SCALE” is way too large, so that all we see is a small portion of the object surface.

As a first step, we probably want to adjust the object “SCALE”, so that we can see the object sensibly enough to make any further adjustments, so click on the boxed Lion_Statue.OBJ object name to select object “PLACEMENT”, with its “MOVE”, “SCALE”, and ROTATE” choices, and then click the “SCALE” tab (or with “hotkeys” enabled, press the “E” key); see Figure 14.7. Make sure that the “Scale all axes uniformly” checkbox is clicked (towards the lower right of the “PLACEMENT” pane), and then adjust the scale on any of the axes to shrink the object uniformly. You may click-and-drag the slider circle on an axis, or click on the numeric value (to the right of the axis) and then either click on the down (or up) arrow on the value or type in a numeric value directly. (In general, it is also possible to click on the image of the object on the build plate and drag the head of an axis on the image – but that may be less convenient in cases such as this where the initial “SCALE” of the object is so extreme.) Figure 14.8 shows the object scaled down enough to fit on the build plate. Note that the “Show object dimension in mm” boxes have changed from red in Figure 14.7 to blue in Figure 14.8, while the object file name (Lion_Statue.OBJ) has changed from red to black; the red was a warning that the object was off-of-the-build-plate.

Figure 14.6: Build plate: Lion Statue loaded, initial view

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Figure 14.7: Build plate: Lion Statue, SCALE selected

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Figure 14.8: Build plate: Lion Statue scaled to fit

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The object in Figure 14.8, while now scaled to a reasonable size, is in an orientation that is probably not the best orientation for 3D printing; this again is a fairly common occurrence when working with OBJ files. So click the “ROTATE” button (or with “hotkeys” enabled, click the “R” key); see Figure 14.9.

Figure 14.9: Build plate: Lion Statue, ROTATE selected

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Note in Figure 14.9 that with “ROTATE” selected, there are four colored circumferences of the object displayed: these are color-coded to match the three axes, with the fourth circumference (in yellow) being perpendicular to whatever your current view of the object may be. In this example, it appears that rotating by about 90° about the y-axis (rotating along the green circumference) might get the object “upright”; see Figure 14.10.

Figure 14.10: Build plate: Lion Statue rotated 90° on y-axis

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Has the y-axis rotation of 90° gotten the object completely upright? At this point, clicking and dragging on the build plate to view the build plate “edge on” may be helpful: see Figure 14.11, where it can be seen that a bit more rotational adjustment of the object is needed, as the object is not yet resting quite flat on the build plate.

Figure 14.11: Build plate: Lion Statue viewed “edge on” to build plate

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Without yet having performed any more rotation on the object itself, Figure 14.12 shows the build plate further rotated to see what additional rotation is needed, with the additonal rotation needed perpendicular to the view (so that the yellow circumference provides a convenient way to perform the rotation). Different people will prefer to perform “PLACEMENT” adjustments differently: some will prefer to perform all adjustments via numeric entry; others may prefer to “eyeball” the approximate changes, and then perhaps fine-tune the adjustment further via numeric entry.

Figure 14.12: Build plate: Lion Statue viewed “edge on” perpendicular to needed rotation

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From Figure 14.12, clicking and dragging on the yellow circumference can get us to Figure 14.13, which shows the lion object rotated to sit flat on the build plate. (Note that because the Polar Cloud represents rotation values as positive values between 0° and 360°, the small negative rotations needed along both the x and z axes get recorded instead as two large, positive rotations: represented as if the object was flipped almost upside-down around one axis, and then almost upside-down again around another axis. This is perhaps an example of why it is sometimes easier to perform the rotations visually, by dragging along the desired rotation circumference.)

Figure 14.13: Build plate: Lion Statue final orientation

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Though not necessary for this object, note that when working with OBJ files, sometimes after adjusting the object size and orientation, you will further wish to adjust the object’s position on the build plate; this may be especially likely when working with a multi-component OBJ file.

For this example Lion Statue, no “MOVE” adjustment is needed: the object is now placed suitably for printing! Perform any desired PRINT SETTINGS” adjustments (see for instance the “Recommended Print Settings” in Figure 14.15), and then click the “PRINT button (upper right of the build plate screen). Once the object loads to the printer, you will be taken to the printer dashboard screen; see Figure 14.14.

Figure 14.14: FlashForge Inventor II printer dashboard: Lion Statue queued

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For FlashForge printers, the object slicing is performed in the Polar Cloud, rather than onboard the printer itself. So with a FlashForge printer, you may potentially go to (see) the printer dashboard while the Polar Cloud is still performing the object slicing: the print job tile may show a slicing status of “Waiting to Slice”, “Preparing slicer”, “Slicing”, or “Saving sliced model”. Once the print job tile in the FlashForge print queue says “Slicing completed” (which typically takes only a minute or so), see Figure 14.14, you may then click the START” button on the printer dashboard to start the print job.

Finally, Figure 14.15 shows the object detail screen for this object, including a photo of the object on the FlashForge Inventor II physical build plate after finishing printing. Note that the recommended rotation settings on the object’s detail screen are not those shown found in the example above, but they also work to get the object upright on the build plate.

Figure 14.15: Chinese Lion Statue object detail screen

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