What is an STL?
STL (Stereolithography) is the de-facto standard file type used by most or all Rapid Prototyping systems. A STL is a triangulated representation (tessellation) of a 3D CAD model. The triangulation of a surface will cause faceting of the 3D solid model. The parameters used for outputting a STL will affect how much faceting occurs. The rp model or prototype built, is a smooth or as faceted as the STL. Think of the rp systems as a replicator of the STL file. If the STL is coarse and faceted, so will be the prototyping model. This applies to any rp technologies such SLA, SLS etc. In the 3D solid CAD program, when exporting to STL, the parameters that affect the faceting include the following, chord height, deviation, angle tolerance, or something similar. The finer the STL the larger the file is in size, which will affect processing time as well as build time. Below is information found on the Internet regarding exporting to STL from various CAD programs.
