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Check a 3D model for 3D printing

Check whether a 3D model is watertight (every triangle edge shared by exactly two triangles, counted by position rather than by vertex index, since STL is a triangle soup with no shared indices at all) and report its volume, surface area, bounding box in millimetres and inches, and smallest observed edge as a rough minimum-feature estimate. Nothing is uploaded.

Input

Check a 3D model for 3D printing tests whether the mesh is watertight: every edge should touch exactly two triangles, matched by position since STL keeps no shared index. It also prints volume, surface area, a millimetre and inch bounding box, and the shortest edge as a floor on wall thickness. A model that fails returns a volume, marked approximate.

Questions

What does watertight mean here?

Every triangle edge in the mesh is shared by exactly two triangles, counted by the position of its endpoints rather than by shared vertex index, since a format like STL stores a triangle soup with no shared indices at all. A model that passes this test has no holes a slicer would have to guess how to fill.

What happens if my model is not watertight?

The verdict names how many open edges and how many non-manifold edges it found. Volume and surface area are still reported, with a note that a model with holes can produce a print that does not match the source geometry, so treat that volume figure as approximate.

What if the mesh is watertight but some faces point inward?

The tool reports that some edges are walked the same way by both of their triangles, meaning some faces have flipped normals, and it withholds the volume figure entirely rather than printing a number computed from a mix of correct and inverted faces, telling you to fix the normals before slicing.

What units does it assume?

The models own units are read as millimetres. The bounding box is printed both that way and converted to inches, so a model authored in centimetres or meters will report the wrong physical size unless you account for that yourself.

What is the minimum feature estimate?

The length of the single shortest edge found anywhere in the mesh, offered as a rough floor on wall thickness or fine detail. It is not a real thin-wall analysis, since a long thin sliver of geometry can still have a short edge without the surface being thin there.

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