How X3D works

This page follows one part all the way through: from the file you upload to the parcel that arrives in India. Read it if you want to know where a number in your quote came from, what happens after you send a request, or which steps are software and which are a person.

Everything below happens in the same order for a model you generated at /in/design and a file you uploaded at /in/print. The only difference is where the mesh came from.

The pipeline#

1. 1
   1. Upload or generate

   An uploaded file goes straight from your browser to storage through a signed URL, because a 100MB model cannot fit in a normal request body. A generated model is written to the same place. Either way, what you end up with is one stored model tied to your account, or, for an upload made while signed out, to your browser.

2. 2
   2. Validate the mesh

   The server reads the bytes back and works out what it has: triangle count, bounding box, volume. A file it cannot read a printable mesh from is rejected here, and a model too big for the build plate is rejected with a message naming its actual size. Rejecting now costs you a minute; rejecting partway through a print costs a plate.

3. 3
   3. Slice it for real

   The model is sent to our slicer service, which runs OrcaSlicer with its machine, process and filament presets. It comes back with the filament volume in cm3, the print time, the layer count and the number of filament changes. That measurement is kept against the model so it is only made once.

4. 4
   4. Quote from the measurement, in rupees

   Filament volume times the material density gives grams. Grams times the all in rupee rate for that material, times 1.75 if you chose premium 0.1mm layers, gives the price. Weight rounds up to the whole gram, and there is no minimum per part in India.

5. 5
   5. Send a request

   You choose how fast it is printed (Normal, or Priority print: 10% of the items, at least ₹200) and whether you want support removal, then press Request this print and give your name, email, city and PIN code. The price is worked out again on the server from the weight and your choices; the number your browser was showing is never trusted. Nothing is charged when you send it.

6. 6
   6. Our reply

   The request reaches our team with a link to your file. The team weighs it again and replies by email with the final price and how to pay. There is no checkout or card payment in India yet.

7. 7
   7. Printed in India

   Our print partner in India prints it: 1 to 3 business days on Normal print, 1 to 2 business days on Priority print.

8. 8
   8. Delivered

   It is delivered across India in 3 to 7 days after printing. Delivery is ₹79, free on orders from ₹999.

Why the quote comes from a slice#

This is the part of the system worth understanding, because it is where most print services differ from us. You are billed per gram. The question is how the grams are worked out before the part exists.

A volume estimate takes the mesh volume, assumes some fraction of it is solid wall and the rest is infill, and multiplies by density. It is fast, it needs no infrastructure, and it is wrong in a specific direction: it cannot see supports, it cannot see the brim, it cannot see the purge a filament change throws away, and it does not know how the slicer will actually lay down walls on a thin part. Thin parts are where it fails worst.

A slicer does not estimate any of that. It generates the actual toolpath and reports the filament it will consume, which already includes the supports, the brim, the skirt, the prime line and every purge. A multi colour plate is the extreme case: four colours on the same mesh can burn several times the plastic of one colour, because the printer spends much of its time swapping and purging. No function of geometry can predict that. A slicer just measures it, which is why every colour price, for a plate you sliced, a project we slice in its own colours, or a generated model, comes from a real slice.

The estimate is still used in two places. It is the number the page shows in the first seconds after upload, before the slice lands. And it is used when a slice would not be representative: above 35% requested infill the slicer runs at its profile default, so its answer stops matching what you asked for and the estimate takes over.

What the price is made of#

For an ordinary part there is one line: weight times rate. Machine time is included. Colour adds to the rate per gram, colour change machine time is ₹30 an hour when it applies (a plate whose hours run far past what its weight implies, which is what tool changes look like in the numbers), and a print using five or more colours adds a ₹500 second AMS fee once per line.

What is automated and what is a person#

Docs that blur this line are how customers end up expecting a robot to catch something only a human was ever going to catch. So, plainly: