Difference in curved surfaces

[Todd_R]

I just printed this part and noticed the smaller radius curves printed nice & smooth, while the large radius printed with "facets" rather than a continuous smooth curve.
Could anyone explain why?
Thanks

[Todd_R]

Here are the pictures

[dkightley]

Now take a look at the 3D model that you printed the model from.

My guess is that you'll see distinct faces in the mode that coincide with the flats on the model. Remember, any 3D shape is made up a mesh of points joined by straight lines.

To get a smoother "curne" you'll need to add more points to the visibility of the "flats".

[Todd_R]

Doug,
We are setting our .stl export to a higher resolution and will check.
Is that what you meant?

[parallyze]

We are setting our .stl export to a higher resolution and will check.

This should solve your problem. If you can't really see the difference when inside S3D, try
to enable wireframe view (View -> Wireframe or CTRL+W). Depending on colors/angle the
difference might not be that obvious otherwise.

A 35mm/15mm cylinder, exported at high/medium/low from CAD:

But be aware that there's a minimum segment length when the toolpaths are generated,
simply increasing the export quality won't necessarily improve the print quality at some point.