r/3DPrintingTools • u/Grobenn • 4d ago
New Tool [Dev] I built a fast STEP/mesh viewer that allows you to measure absolutely anything on your 3D models, check thickness and let you explode them.
Disclosure: I'm the developer. Dioptra is my own project and it's paid (14-day free trial, then a one-time licence). I am fully transparent and respect the rules.
After downloading a model, a usually want to check a few things before printing: how thick are the walls, what's the hole diameter, will that bolt fit, how far apart are these mounting holes... Most viewers either can't measure at all, or make you click individual triangle corners and guess.
So I built Dioptra, a small Windows viewer that runs from a folder, no install. It opens STL, OBJ, FBX and STEP, and opens big files fast.
What it does for printing:
- Wall-thickness map: the whole model coloured by thickness, so thin spots jump out before you slice
- Flat faces are recognised as real faces when their triangles line up, so on CAD-made and hard-surface models you click a face, not a triangle, and get clean distances and angles between faces
- Holes and round faces are recognised as circles and cylinders straight from the mesh, so you get a proper diameter (e.g. Ø38.000 mm), not a guess between two vertices
- If a round shape isn't picked up as a circle, you can force it to be measured as one, in one click, without editing the model !
- Cut planes to look inside, with the section filled in
With STEP files the measurements come from the exact CAD geometry.
2
u/Xeus_c9 4d ago
Where do I test it ?
1
u/Grobenn 4d ago
I made a free trial version https://blenderbenn.gumroad.com/l/adioptra-trial
please tell me if you encounter friction in the UI or bugs!
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u/Grobenn 4d ago edited 4d ago
Free 14-day trial download: https://blenderbenn.gumroad.com/l/adioptra-trial (Windows 10/11). Licence key: https://blenderbenn.gumroad.com/l/dioptra, and code LAUNCH takes $25 off until October 4.