zip file then adding it to Blender as a normal add-on and disabling the default STL exporter and importer, but there might be extra work that needs to be done, not entirely sure.The open-source program known as Blender 3D can be used for a variety of projects ranging from 3D animation to video editing.
I believe it's just as simple as putting everything inside the INSTALL LOCATION OF BLENDER/2.92/scripts/addons/io_mesh_stl/ folder into a. You will need to do this for every version of Blender you use which can be annoying, however what you can do is grab the STL exporter and importer from one version of Blender, modify it to have the settings you want, then turn it into a add-on that you just install in every version of Blender you use. When importing objects they will be scaled to 0.001 which means that if they're files designed for slicers, they should be the right size in Blender. Only the selected object will be exported and it will be scaled up 1000 times so it's the right scale in slicers. Now the defaults should be changed in Blender. Just a few lines below the line we found earlier you'll see:ĭescription="Export selected objects only",Ĭhange the default to True and save the file. After this bit you'll find all the settings for the STL importer and their defaults. You're probably want to start off by scrolling down until you find a line like class ImportSTL(Operator, ImportHelper). What you'll want to do is create a backup of the file, then open the file in a text editor and change the values to the defaults you want.
The file is located at INSTALL LOCATION OF BLENDER/2.92/scripts/addons/io_mesh_stl/_init_.py
You may not be able to access this file in future versions of Blender, but in the meantime you can so you can modify these settings. You can modify this file and change the defaults. In the installation folder of Blender there is a python file that's used for the STL export. However, there is a way to do it if you wish to do a little bit of extra work. Please use other channels for user feedback and feature requests: I model everything in Blender but I treat 1 Blender meter as 1 real world millimetre and that means I don't have to scale anything)Īt the moment changing the default is not supported, and requesting for the feature to be added is technically a feature request and this site isn't for tracking feature requests. So at the moment, you just need to keep importing and exporting your STL files with the 1000x and 0.001x scale modifiers or make your objects 1000x bigger than they should be so you don't have to scale them on import and export for the 3D printer. In theory a "fix" could be introduced by adding a "Export for 3D printing" and "Import 3D printing file" option to the export and import screens, but there's no guarantee that this will be the right scale for all 3D printers, especially with large 3D printers (E.G. Blender has been chosen to read STL units as 1 meter because it's probably what most other programs use and it's very likely that at the time the STL importer and export was introduced, 3D printers were a very niche product.Īs for why changing your units size in Blender to millimetres doesn't help is because if it did change the size of the final STL, you could face loads of issues when collaborating on projects as all these different objects, all from the same program, have completely different scales. The issue isn't with Blender, it's to do with the fact that STL files don't have units built in and the program opening it determines how large things should be. If you import a STL into a game engine, it reads the STL unit is probably 1 meter. If you open it into most 3D modeling programs, an STL unit is probably 1 meter. If you import it into a slicer for a consumer 3D printer, an STL unit is usually determined as 1 millimetre. How big an STL unit is depends on the program you're importing it into. STL files contain no scale information, and the units are arbitrary.īecause of this lack of scale, Blender will export your 3D model and map one blender unit (1 meter) to one STL unit. And this is backed up by the wikipedia article for STL files: (file_format) (from memory i might be wrong)Īs this comment points out, STLs don't support units like meter or millimetres. STL if i remember dosn't support the scale.