before a mesh can be printed it needs to be 'repaired'. According to most tutorials that is including making the shape close and removing inner shapes. Reading through B-REP in Wikipedia there is no layman term or explanation how it differs form the traditional polygonal mesh create for example from scanning or exporting from CAD. Is B-REP a mesh that only represents a boundary and therefore ready to be printed?
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a) about
Is B-REP a mesh that only represents a boundary [..] ?
B-Rep contains more information, see here:
There are two types of information in a B-rep: topological and geometric. Topological information provide the relationships among vertices, edges and faces similar to that used in a wireframe model. In addition to connectivity, topological information also include orientation of edges and faces. Geometric information are usually equations of the edges and faces.
b) about
and therefore ready to be printed
it is need not only check that the model is correct (no lack of a face, no wrong face normals, ...) but also that is valid for a 3d printer (no "floating" parts, addition of supports, ...).
Finally, recall the model is not what drives the printer, the printer is controlled by the machine instructions, usually gcode. Thus, the usual evolution is: parts description (.scad, ...), model format (.stl, ...) and machine instructions (.gcode).
