Confused about Modeling

I used Nettfab to cut a model of a submarine into pieces so I could print it being it is too long to be printed whole. After the cuts, the ends look solid and exporting it to other programs like Meshmixer or Meshlab looks the same. I want it to be hollow but can't tell if the ends are closed off or it's a solid piece. In Simplify3D, standing a piece on end and having no top layers it shows hollow. On its side, the ends are solid, but the inside still hollow. I imported it into Tinkercad where it again has solid ends, and if I put cylinders on the ends and make them hollow, it shows the model is solid. I have to run a hollow cylinder the length of the model to see through it. Does any of this make sense? I want to add something to each piece so I can connect them, but first I need to understand why Simplify will print the model hollow even though the modeling software shows it as solid. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Have any screenshots? I'm having trouble picturing it.

If its solid, you can make it print hollow in simplify3d, by setting zero infill and giving it a few shells, setting the top and bottom layers to 0 will make it not have a top or bottom.. If what you want is a hole in the end, you would probably have to do that in tinkercad, im not sure what tinker cad calls it but its usually some sort of boolean operation.. I think tinkercad calls it a hole?

Also Meshmixer 3.0 does have a tool if you want to make it hollow, you basically select the model and tell it how thick the walls should be and it hollows it for you. which is good if its organic shape and doesn't really have a top and bottom, so you might do that. You still might have to punch the ends out in tinkercad after.

 

Thanks for replying. I'm on my iPad so I can't do a screenshot but what you said about Simplify is how I had it set up, which would explain how I get it to print hollow. What I don't get though is why if I lay it on its side and use the preview sliders, it builds the cylinder with solid sides and hollow inside-picture a 55 gallon drum cut in half. Yet, it still looks solid in these other programs. I'll have to play some more.

 

If its solid in the other programs, then its solid.

Simplify3d just knows how to either print the interior solid ( if you did 100% infill ), or not solid if you did 0%..or will do a partial fill like 20% with a grid if you do 20% infill. It does not know which end you want open, so if you turned a solid cylinder on it side and did 0% infill, it would still be solid everywhere exept it wouldn't print the inside.

I have an idea what you are trying to do, I think you might want to mess with meshmixers feature that allows you to hollow it..but after you hollow it will still have ends on it, so you would need to figure out how to cut the ends out, mishmexer might be able to do that but I have hardly used that program, all I have done is hollowed the "bunny" model that it came with and it worked good.

I think this guy messes around with the feature in Meshmixer that lets you hollow a thing out.


What I imagine you might need to do, is use meshmixer to hollow it, then cut the ends off. If you can post one of the files I can give it a try, though I don't know what i'm doing anyway but i'll try and figure it out.

 

Thanks man, your explanation of Simplify answered my question. And thanks for the link. I'll give it a look tonight.