Hi Tom, it's probably going to be a while before this will be possible.

It's difficult because MoI is focused on working on spline curves and smooth surfaces, and STL files don't contain that kind of data. They instead contain a completely different style of 3D data that has surfaces defined by a large number of little flat triangle pieces and not any actual smooth curves or surfaces at all.

So it's kind of a mis-match for the type of data that MoI is focused on dealing with.


When you import an STL into Rhino, it will become a polygon mesh object inside of Rhino, which is a different style of object than a NURBS object. MoI will only read NURBS objects out of a .3dm file and not polygon mesh objects, that's why you were not able to read that into MoI.


If your STL file is relatively simple, it may be possible to run the meshtonurb Rhino command on it - this will take each polygon of the polygon mesh and turn it into a trimmed NURBS surface that are all joined together. This will not tend to work very well if you have a very large number of polygons to deal with though, it is just not how NURBS objects are designed to be structured - NURBS objects are designed to be made up of larger smooth surface sheets instead of zillions of little tiny flat facets.


Another option for now would be to save the STL out from Rhino to an OBJ file, and then you can run the OBJ to 3DM wireframe converter that is available here:
http://moi3d.com/wiki/Resources#Obj23dmWireframe_converter

That will create a .3dm file that has a line curve object for every edge of the polygon mesh data. That file with lines in it can then be read into MoI and used as a snapping guide.


But yeah in general it is a different structure of data than MoI is designed to work on...

- Michael

Hey Tom,

I have to ask... what are you doing going from Artcam to MoI?

You say you're doing text work in AC. I know AC does text on curve and all the good stuff like that. Maybe you could export your AC vector work as an EPS and then open it in MoI for the 3d work. Then just save it in MoI as a 3ds, open it in AC, toolpath it, and go.

Thats just an idea for you anyway, i know I dont have the whole picture. :-)

-Nick

Hi Tom,

You can copy the vertex points from Rhino to Moi with copy/paste.

Hi Tom,

I also work with MoI and ArtCAM. I try to use each program for their strengths. Rather than bring a model from ArtCAM into MoI, if I see an advantage in designing a particular model in MoI, I'll do the design work that MoI is adept at first, then export an STL to ArtCAM to do things like arraying lettering around a curve or surface texturing.

It may be a personal preference, but I also find it easier to draw 2D artwork or trace an image in MoI and then export an .AI file to A.C. where it can then be given 2.5d dimension.

ArtCAM can export OBJ's and STL's but as Michael pointed out, the advantages of bringing an STL model into a program like MoI or Rhino are really pretty minimal since there isn't much you can do with an STL in a NURBS program.

-Jesse

You have a great idea, thanks for the help :)
Tom