After playing a bit.. I may have some suggestions.. 3shape model builder isnt set up to do the ortho models.. But.. I think what you would need to do to get a hollow model is this: Have someone with rhino or another cad program change your .stl bases that are saved in 3shape to ones that have no top or bottom..then resave. The scans of the model are already hollow, but when you put the base which is a complete block, on the digital model, it covers your hollow model. I assume that the printing software would be able to take care of setting the thickness.. whether you wanted it 3-5mm thick or so. Maybe someone with a printer can chime in.
In my mind its this simple as well. We wouldn't be having this conversation and the question that would be asked is how thin do you make your study models.
I,m starting to understand a little about the computer side of things rather than the logic side of things. What your are saying sounds fine, it does in my mind as well, but I watched Patmo's video which helped me understand why it's not so easy. From the scan of the model and teeth etc. a line of the contours is created. It's what we see as our model.its a line that makes a "solid" looking shape.all on the inside is the mesh lines that the software has made to define what it has seen in a scan. It includes its base. Most of the time when we spin our model you can see the inside and outside and it looks so close to being hollow, but I think as soon as a base or artistic base is put on then the software recognises the shape as a solid. It is defined by a rule of inside against outside.
We all have different thickness textas, it would be great if the scan line and what we see had a thickness, but it doesn't. The computer / software doesn't know what is under the surface unfortunately. Logic says just evenly add all round the inside whith a thicker line then print. I have this new word now called offset. It's the distance from the original surface evenly all round and usually perpendicular to that point which you are at. So a perfect inner line from the original scan line, thus defining a shape within a shape, the void in the centre is hollow the offset to the original scan is the solid and the outside is the outside..this is where new problems occur and why I think I can't print a hollow model.
Looking at Pats video , when an offset is created to the inside in tight corners the mesh crosses itself and thus confuses the software to the point it doesn't know if that area is inside or outside as it breaks the rules for this definition, hence sending to the printer ends in errors.
Manipulation can overcome this crossing of swords/ particle beams / CAD but I'm asking myself how quickly and time efficiently.
This also answers my question as to a coping being made. It's all added to the outside and the offset lines radiate away from each other because the shape is convex. The mesh lines don't cross and so fit within the rules of what is a shape.
I hope I'm making sense because I think I've confused myself
Will take members advice and give Scott a message.
It would be great if any 3D printer gurus have a solution.
