These platforms can be accessed online using your browser and provide all the essential tools to viewing (or even editing) your STL files. If you have a stable Internet connection, you don’t even need to download software to view STL files. All of these are free to either use or download. In this article, we will be going through all the best options for opening or viewing your STL files. This makes it easy to check STL files before you load them onto a 3D printer. STL files have a small file size, are easy to share, and generally maintain the integrity of the original 3D model.Īnother huge advantage of STL files is how easily they can be viewed or opened, even if you don’t have a fancy CAD software platform. The STL file format is one of the fundamental foundations of the modern 3D printing community. Typical issues include: shapes which do not have completely closed external surfaces - you'll see these as voids or parts of the model vanishing on the above online STL viewer.3D Insider is ad supported and earns money from clicks, commissions from sales, and other ways. For example, the online viewer View 3D STL.and then export the STL file using the following notes to help you: A free version of Sketchup Make seems to be available for personal use.Also a free student version of Autodesk Inventor appears to be available from here for student use.Autodesk Inventor is also available on the Dyson Centre machines.Contact Dr Richard Roebuck, RLR20, if you are an Cambridge Engineering undergraduate wishing to install Solidworks on your own machine.Solidworks is available on the Department's DPO and Dyson Centre machines.More normally, draw the item you want in your preferred drawing package: If you'd simply like to try a 3D printer, then select something to 3D print from an internet site such as Thingiverse (maybe good to start with something simple) and you can download an STL file from them - of course there is no guarantee that the STL file is any good unless they report they have test printed it themselves. Answer from 3D Systems (can take a while to load).

Autodesk stl viewer