I'm trying to load a 3DM file saved out from Deep Exploration from an STL file in the demo version of MOI. Does this not work? I just get a blank scene in MOI. Can MOI open STL or STP files directly? Thank you.

Sorry Moi can open directly 3dm, igs, iges, AI, eps,pdf

Ok, so why would it not load a 3dm file saved from Deep Exploration? I could of sworn I did this sometime last year with a beta of Moi but now it doesn't work.

Hi Kris – it is possible to store a lot of different kinds of objects in a 3DM file, like NURBS solids, polygon meshes, rendering lights, dimensions and annotation text, etc…

MoI is focused on NURBS modeling only and will only read the NURBS solids out of a 3DM file, not any of the other information (although it will "round trip" such information when you save the file again).

It is likely that the 3DM file saved from Deep Exploration only contained polygon mesh type objects inside of it, which is why nothing was read into MoI.

STL files are also polygon data, so MoI is not able to read those in, since MoI only reads in NURBS data.

STP files do contain NURBS data, but MoI does not currently support this file format, it is something that I do want to add for version 2.0 though.

Probably your best bet is to use an IGES file, which is similar to STP.

But in general if you have a model that is formed as polygons, you cannot read that model directly into MoI.

It is possible to read in the wireframe of a polygon model as lines to use as a snapping aid while constructing a new model inside of MoI – to do that use the OBJ to 3DM converter from here: http://moi3d.com/wiki/Resources#Obj23dmWireframe_converter

- Michael

> Ok, so why would it not load a 3dm file saved from Deep
> Exploration? I could of sworn I did this sometime last year
> with a beta of Moi but now it doesn't work.

In that case you must have had a .3dm file that contained NURBS objects inside of it.

3DM files that contain those types of objects will be read in fine.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

I've come across similar situations with some Rhino files (3DM files) before.
Just out of habit I always tend to open most of them with MoI first.
These particular Rhino files only had STL mesh data within them & of course this can't be read by MoI.
Had me scratching my head at first wondering "why can't I see anything"??
That was until I opened the same files with Rhino & then I realised the answer!!

Not a big deal if you have both Rhino & MoI, but I can see how easy it is to get caught out if you're not familiar with the "whys & wherefores" of 3DM files.

regards Colin

Great, thanks everyone. I'll have to dig into these in Rhino or Deep Exploration and found out what the issue is.

Kris

Hi Colin, I guess I should pop up a warning message if no readable objects were found, that would probably help clear this up.

I've made a note on my todo list to add this in for v2.

- Michael