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3D Print Infill Weight Calculator

Enter your model volume, infill, shell fraction and density to estimate filament weight.

How it is calculated

First the share of the model that is really solid: solid fraction = shell + (1 − shell) × infill, with shell and infill as fractions (percent ÷ 100). The shell is the part of the volume printed at 100% (walls, top and bottom layers); only the remainder is filled at your infill percentage. Then solid volume = volume × solid fraction in cm³ and weight = solid volume × density in grams, with density in g/cm³. Volume and density must be above zero, and infill and shell must each lie between 0 and 100, otherwise there is no result. The shell percentage is your own estimate; take it from the slicer's statistics if you can. Supports, brim and purge material are not included.

Worked example

A model of 50 cm³ in PLA (density 1.24 g/cm³), printed with 20% infill, where about 30% of the volume is solid shell. Solid fraction: 0.30 + 0.70 × 0.20 = 0.44, shown as 44.00%. Solid volume: 50 × 0.44 = 22.00 cm³. Weight: 22 × 1.24 = 27.28 g. At 0% infill the same print would still weigh 18.60 g, because the shell alone is 15 cm³.

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Common mistakes

  • Using the bounding-box volume of the part instead of the model's actual volume. The slicer or CAD figure for the solid is the one to enter, and it must be in cm³ (1 cm³ = 1000 mm³).
  • Entering the infill as 0.2 rather than 20. The field is a percentage, so 0.2 means 0.2% infill.
  • Setting shell to 0 and expecting walls to be ignored. Walls and top/bottom layers are solid, so a very low shell value underestimates the weight of small, thin-walled parts.
  • Using the density of the pure polymer for a filament with additives; wood-fill or carbon-fibre blends differ from the PLA figure.
  • Forgetting that supports, skirts and failed prints add filament that is not counted here.

About this calculator

This calculator estimates filament weight as: mass = model volume × (shell fraction + (1 − shell fraction) × infill percentage) × material density — the shell fraction accounts for the solid outer walls and top/bottom layers that print at 100% regardless of the chosen infill setting, while the remaining internal volume is filled only to the infill percentage you specify.

Hobbyist and professional FDM (fused deposition modeling) 3D-printer users use it to estimate how much filament a print will consume — and its approximate cost — before starting a long print job, plugging in the density of their material (around 1.24 g/cm³ for PLA, 1.27 g/cm³ for PETG, 1.04 g/cm³ for ABS) since slicer software estimates can vary between programs and profiles.

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Comments (1)

  • Editorial team

    The shell percentage is the hardest input to guess. A practical way to get it: slice the model once with infill at 0% and read the material volume the slicer reports, then divide that by the full model volume and enter the result as the shell figure. Walls, top and bottom layers stay solid even then, so that number is a good estimate for this field. Which filament and wall settings do you print with, and how close did the estimate land?

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