STL Export Help - STL file opens smaller in IdeaMaker

Support Technical Support
1

Blender: 2.92.0

I am super new with Blender! So I have two questions, 1) how to properly export an STL and 2) why did my method of scaling my export with 39.37 work?

  1. I have a 20mm x 20mm x 20mm cube. When I export it to an STL and open my STL file in IdeaMaker it becomes very small. On IdeaMaker it shows as .5mm x .5mm x .5mm. How do I get the object size consistent when exporting?

  2. After a lot of trial and error. I found a solution to work around my problem. But I’m not sure why this works. Could anyone explain?
    My Solution:

Blender: Scene:
-Changed ‘Unit System’ to Metric
-Changed ‘Length’ to Milimeters
-Shape in blender is a cube with the dimensions of 20mm x 20mm x 20mm

Blender: Export: STL
-‘Scene Unit’ clicked
-‘Scale’: 39.37

Hopefully that makes sense. Let me know if I need to elaborate on anything. Thanks!

2

Welcome :tada: ,
the funny thing is ( from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STL_(file_format) )

Units in binary STL
The coordinate units are not specified in the STL standard.

(see also history… so i ever wondered why this is used…)

And 39.37 = 1/0.0254 … that’s the factor between feet/meter (0.3937=1/2.54 for inch/cm):

1 inch = 2.54 cm // 0.3937 inch = 1cm

So ideamaker is assuming the imperial system !?

3

that makes so much more sense! thanks so much!