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Set up units

Usually, when modeling for 3D printing, you will be using millimeters, so make sure that the scene is using “Metric” units and, specifically, set to millimeters.

Set up the view for small objects

When zooming in close to these small models, the view clipping is sometimes too far out from the camera. This can cause some visual oddities, like the following. The camera is outside of the isosphere’s mesh, but the clipping of the camera hides the faces of the sphere closest to the camera, making it appear as though the camera is inside the mesh.

A view of the Blender viewport clipping a mesh

To fix this, adjust the properties of the view.

  1. Bring up the Properties menu by pressing ‘n’.
  2. Select the ‘View’ tab from the right side of the panel that appears
  3. Change the ‘Clip Start’ to something smaller, until the object in question comes into view as you’d like.
A view of the Blender viewport with more appropriate view clipping settings

Turn on the 3D printing plugin

A “3D-Print Toolbox” plugin is available. I haven’t used it yet, so I don’t know anything about it yet.

Enabled 3D-Print Toolbox plugin

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