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Is there a reasonable way of approximating the volume of material used for 3D print by knowing only the STL file volume and infill percentage?

Or what is the formula for calculating the exact volume and which parameters can be fixed to reasonable values?

Can this be done easily using Slic3r or CuraEngine in command line?

Note: Supposedly 3Dhubs use Cura[*] software to calculate the print volume.

Any help is appreciated.

[*] www.3dhubs.com/talk/thread/calculate-print-volume

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  • $\begingroup$ by knowing only the STL file volume which else volume do you want? $\endgroup$
    – fukanchik
    Jul 20, 2016 at 17:32
  • $\begingroup$ Are you sure you want the volume, or are you asking for the amount of print material required to print? The volume does not depend on the infill percentage, but the print material usage does. $\endgroup$
    – emackey
    Jul 20, 2016 at 20:07
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    $\begingroup$ @dsalaj, so what you are saying is that you want to know the volume of the material used, and not the volume of the final print? $\endgroup$
    – Tormod Haugene
    Jul 21, 2016 at 7:44
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    $\begingroup$ @TormodHaugene You are right. I was ignorant thinking these two are the same. Obviously the volume after melting, cooling, etc. will change. I was able to work out the volume of material used know simply by using the filament length (calculated by Cura) and filament diameter. $\endgroup$
    – dsalaj
    Jul 21, 2016 at 10:31
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    $\begingroup$ @TormodHaugene Thank you. Yes I have. I only need to figure out how to do it from command line with CuraEngine. I will do that, thanks. $\endgroup$
    – dsalaj
    Jul 21, 2016 at 10:38

1 Answer 1

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Possible way to calculate the volume of material used is to multiply the filament length (calculated by CURA after slicing and displayed in lower right corner) and surface of filament tip.

Volume = Filament_length * ( Filament_diameter / 2 )^2 * PI

Of course do not forget to convert all values to the same order of magnitude (e.g. cm³).

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    $\begingroup$ This is the correct answer for the volume of material used as talked about in the comments. Note that a traditional geometric volume of the final print would of course include the interior empty space between infill supports, not just the volume of the material used (for example, print a watertight model and dunk it in water, check the amount of water displacement). But for material used, this is the correct formula. $\endgroup$
    – emackey
    Jul 21, 2016 at 13:20

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