Hi Michael, I must have misunderstood what the goal of importing an STL file was, since in the first message was mentioned reverse engineering programs, something that actually comes up in professional work, because laser scan data are point clouds that get turned into polygonal 3D files.

In fact, many professional CAD packages let you import mesh files and then reconstruct them using tools that allow you to build on top of the references.
I often work with this kind of data format myself, STL files, and then do the reconstruction file over 3GB and some files I'm working on are over 2GB STL, and I had to reduce them because the full model is over 50GB of RAW data.

So that’s why I suggested this approach, considering that Moi3D doesn’t have a way to import STL files, except for some JavaScript scripts, and I figured that having a STEP file, even if polygonal, could let you do the reconstruction right inside Moi3D's tools.

Cheers

Hi ado1, could you share that 3D file? That way I can take a better look and maybe I can get you a usable model for your purpose.

Although at this point I have to admit I might not have understood what you’re aiming for by having an STL model imported into SubD, which isn’t possible because of the triangles.

However, if your goal is to have a SubD model in Moi3D, the best thing you can do is re-topologize using mesh modeling applications like Blender, or buy an add-on for Blender, “Quad Remesher”, which costs just over 100 dollars and does an excellent quad-topology reconstruction of 3D meshes, and that lets you import it into Moi3D.

There are issues using those kinds of models directly, though, because Moi3D can’t recognize the sharp edges of subdivision surfaces, so you could still use Blender and other add-ons that let you export the models to IGES or STEP, which take the sharp edges in SubD models into account.

Quad Remesher link -> https://exoside.com/

For example this model below was done manually by me yesterday for a beginner user, and I "retopologized" the model with Blender from a file STL of a laser scan.

Model exported from Blender 3D as STEP file.


Cheers

@pafurijaz

end result looks good

I can supply the original stl the nextengine produced so folk can play with it

knock yourselves out

Whoever can do the smallest good looking nurbs file, for MOI editing/creating a sexy final object, is the goal.

and that means that MOI users can do 3d scanner work on the cheap

I can start the ball rolling from my faffing about

107MB subD from an STL reduced to 147KB

Hey, I downloaded the STL file and, using Blender with an add-on called “QRemeshify”, I converted it into a quad topology mesh.
Then I exported the model as OBJ and imported it into Moi3D using the SubD command.

I’m attaching the OBJ file below, so you have a model in Moi3D to work on that’s lighter than an STL file.

You can also find QRemeshify on GitHub, but maybe from this link (https://ksami.gumroad.com/l/QRemeshify) you get a version that works with the libraries as well.
However, if you’re dealing with this kind of file, you might want to consider Quad Remesher, which I already mentioned in my previous comment, because it produces a much better remesh.



Cheers