Printing solid models

You can create three-dimensional prototypes and finished products from your models by printing them to a 3D printer. The 3D printing process produces a physical object by adding layers of material in the as-designed shape of your digital model data. When applied on an industrial scale, using a wide variety of material deposition techniques and processes, this technology is referred to as additive manufacturing.

In QY CAD, you can transform your digital CAD model files into 3D shapes using the options on the 3D Print page on the Application menu. For more information, see Using the 3D Print page.

Print directly from your desktop

You can produce fast prototypes of your models by printing directly to a locally installed 3D printer from your QY CAD desktop. You can do this if you have the Windows 10 operating system, are connected to a 3D printer, and have the appropriate printer driver installed.

To learn how to do this, see Print directly to a 3D printer.

Print using a cloud-based service provider

You can submit your file for manufacture using the 3D online service portal. This 3D printing option is especially useful if you do not have access to a 3D printer from your desktop, or if you do not have experience working with 3D printing companies.

The service portal also provides automatic validation of your design when you upload your 3MF or STL file to the service provider.

To learn how to do this, see Print using the 3D service portal.

Visualize and edit your additive manufacturing file before printing it

When your model is saved in one of the additive manufacturing file formats, you can use the Microsoft 3D Builder application to validate, clean up, and repair your 3D model. You also can use their visualization and editing functions, which are not available in QY CAD, for your STL and 3MF files. For example, you can add and group multiple 3D objects in one file, so that they can be 3D printed together. For a 3MF file type, you can also apply color to individual objects.

When you are finished reviewing the file, you can print from 3D Builder to a 3D printer for which you have a Windows-compatible printer driver installed, or you can print it using one of the options on the 3D Print page in QY CAD.

Save an additive manufacturing file to disk

You can save your model to disk in a 3D printer-ready file format, so that you can send it for manufacture at a later time. From the 3D Print page, you can export your part, sheet metal, or assembly model as an STL or 3MF file. For more information, see Save a 3D print file to disk.

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