Print Doctor

3D printing pre-flight check and cost estimation tool. Analyze STL/3MF models for printability issues before you waste filament, get a cost estimate for print shops, and generate readable Markdown reports.

Features

• Printability check — detects thin walls, overhangs, self-intersections, non-watertight meshes, degenerate faces and inverted normals
• Printability score — 0-100 weighted score based on detected issues
• Cost estimation — weight, print time, material/electricity cost and suggested retail price based on real print configuration
• Markdown reports — human-readable output with severity levels and actionable suggestions, saveable to file
• CLI exit codes — critical issues exit non-zero, ready for CI integration

Installation

Requires Python 3.11+.

# with Poetry
poetry install
poetry run print-doctor version

# or with uv
uv sync
uv run print-doctor version

Usage

Check a model

# Basic analysis with cost estimation (PLA defaults)
print-doctor check model.stl

# Choose material and price
print-doctor check model.stl -m PETG -p 30

# Save report to file
print-doctor check model.stl -o report.md

# Skip cost estimation
print-doctor check model.stl --no-cost

Exit code is 1 when the model has critical (error-level) issues, making it suitable for CI pipelines.

Supported file formats

• STL (stereolithography)
• 3MF (3D Manufacturing Format)

Materials

PLA, PETG, ABS, TPU, Nylon — with built-in density and default price tables (see config/materials.yaml and src/print_doctor/cost.py).

Example output

# Print Doctor Report: model.stl

## Printability Score: 85.0/100

## Mesh Information
- **Watertight:** yes
- **Manifold:** yes
- **Triangles:** 1,234
- **Volume:** 12.34 cm3
- **Surface Area:** 45.67 cm2
- **Bounding Box:** 10.0 x 20.0 x 30.0 mm

## Issues Found

### [WARNING] thin_wall
- **Description:** Found thin wall regions: 45/500 sample points (9.0%) ...
- **Location:** 9.0% of sampled surface
- **Suggestion:** Increase wall thickness to at least 0.80mm ...

## Cost Estimate
- **Weight:** 15.3g
- **Print Time:** 1.2 hours
- **Material Cost:** $0.38
- **Electricity Cost:** $0.03
- **Total Cost:** $0.41
- **Suggested Price:** $0.82

Development

poetry install --with dev
poetry run pytest

Generate E2E fixture models:

python tests/generate_fixtures.py

License

MIT License