Mesh formats
Render an STL file into product photos
STL is the format you already have if the design went to a 3D printer. It is also the format that has lost the most: one mesh, no colours, no part names — and, for jewellery, usually no stones. Rendermio deals with each of those.
How Rendermio reads STL
Accepted as .stl. An STL is one welded blob of triangles with per-facet normals and nothing else. Rendermio reads it, drops the facet normals, welds the duplicated vertices at a tolerance that scales with the model, and rebuilds smooth normals — which is what turns a faceted print file back into a metal that reads as polished. Then it splits disconnected shells back into separate parts, so a band and a head that were exported as one STL can take different materials again.
What comes through
- The shape, at whatever resolution it was exported
- Separate parts, recovered by splitting the mesh wherever the shells do not touch
- Smooth shading, rebuilt from the welded mesh
What does not
- Stones — most jewellery STL exports omit them, since a print does not need them. Add them back from the cut palette, or from the design's .3dm if you have it
- Colours, materials and part names: STL cannot carry any of them
- Units — STL has none, so scale is whatever the exporter assumed
- Curvature: a coarse export shows flats on a band; export finer, or ask for the STEP
Exporting STL from your CAD program
- Export at a fine tolerance — the flats you see in a render are the flats in the file, and no smoothing can add curvature that is not there
- Export the stones as well, if the program allows it; otherwise place them in the studio
- If you have any choice at all, ask for STEP or 3DM — STL is the format of last resort for rendering, not the first
STL files typically come from every CAD program, 3D printing slicers, casting houses, Thingiverse-style downloads. Working in SolidWorks, Fusion, CATIA, Inventor or Creo? Their native files are not readable in a browser — here is what to export instead.
Then what happens
Once the file is in, the steps are the same for every format: tell the studio what the object is, and it dresses it — one click finds the stones in a ring and makes the rest gold. Pick a Look, which sets lighting, backdrop, pose and camera together. Export a listing pack up to 8K or a 360° turntable video. Everything runs on your own GPU; the file never leaves the page.
Questions
Why does my STL ring have no diamonds?
Because the exporter left them out — a print file does not need stones. Rendermio's Stones step lets you pick a cut and click each seat to place a real ray-traced gem, with the size measured from the surrounding prongs. If you also have the design's .3dm, the 'From .3dm' button places every stone exactly where the designer put it.
Can an STL render as well as a STEP?
Nearly, if it was exported finely. Rendermio welds and smooths the mesh, so shading is as good. What cannot be recovered is curvature the export did not include: a coarse STL shows flats on a band, and the fix is a finer export or the STEP.
My STL is one solid piece — can I still give the band and the head different metals?
Yes, if they do not touch. Rendermio splits the mesh wherever the shells are disconnected, so separate bodies become separate parts. Fused bodies stay one part.
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