"""""Burr, feed ANDY will you!"""""""""""

Hahahaha! Danny.. Yeah, trying to get the facet reduction down enough so that the NURBS file would import into MoI was rough.. It seemed to always want to chip away at the "biceps" for some reason...lol

Anyway, it is a poor path.. Would be easier to just draw Andy in MoI really quick!!! :o The file you see there is 130 mb.

Hi Pierre, there are also some other kinds of programs that are focused on reducing polygon counts for mesh data - here's one: http://www.atangeo.com/

- Michael

You could also just head on down to 3d Content Central and grab your self a freebie, just choose the STEP download option.

http://www.3dcontentcentral.com/Search.aspx?arg=Humans&page=1


I've attached 'James' who's weighs in at a measly 1.73MB but looks well fed :)

Cheers

Hahahaha! Danny, I dont know how he stays well fed though... Poor James is merley a "Joined surface".. His crotch is a mess!!!!!!!! (Must have leaky gut syndrome)

I really love these conversions that you can find over at the central though.. I wish i had this software that can do the poly conversions like this.. I had talked to someone once that said they just did a model in Solidworks from scan data!!!! I wonder if MoI's "save to Point File" command would provide the proper type of input for this, to bypass having to do the "Geomagic" type route?...

Hi Burr,

> I wonder if MoI's "save to Point File" command would
> provide the proper type of input for this, to bypass having
> to do the "Geomagic" type route?...

When you say "proper input", which application are you talking about inputting the points into?

The Geomagic stuff handles big point clouds where the points are not ordered in any particular way - it does a lot of work to analyze all the points and organize them, fit surfaces to them, etc...

- Michael

Hi Michael,
I was refering to SolidWorks and the Scan data comment I made.. But I dont suppose I was really going to get a detailed response from that... That could be more from the SolidWorks forum.. (I dont even have SolidWorks to start testing it)

I guess the question would then be if the save to point file command gives a good input as a "point cloud?"

Hi Burr,

> I guess the question would then be if the save to
> point file command gives a good input as a "point
> cloud?"

I would think so - but it does depend on what particular formats SolidWorks can read point clouds from.

The save to point file command makes a simple text file with each point as one line in the text file. So the thing to look for in SolidWorks would be if it can read point clouds from text files like that.

- Michael

Hi Burr, so I guess it looks like SolidWorks may not read points from a text file like that directly, but there is a SolidWorks plug-in that you can get that will do it, from here:

http://www.sycode.com/products/points_import_sw/index.htm

- Michael

Thanks for looking into that...

I am a Solidworks user. There is an add-in that comes with Solidworks Premium called ScanTo3D. As it's name suggests, it is primarily designed to deal with point clouds coming from a 3d scan source. However it will read an OBJ polygon file and convert that to a point cloud. There are several subsequent options, but you can run a guided wizard that will attempt to create Nurbs surfaces from this cloud. However, the surfaces are untrimmed so you have to trim and knit yourself. I'm not sure of the utility of this as you end up with a Nurbs object that has no parametric history or dimensions and is therefore not really editable except with SW's deform tools. The main use I suppose is to use as a pattern for rebuilding.

Note that referring to add-ins in Solidworks is not the same as you might be familiar with. These add-ins are not (mostly) 3rd party but part of the DS product, it's just that you are able to load and unload parts of code if you need them or not (e.g. the renderer or the FEA tools).

I wouldn't even think of trying to import a Poser figure in to SW as a point cloud!!!

Hey thanks Steve,
Great input for me....And yes, converting organic polygon data to NURBS is a poor choice... However, I am still optimistic about Integrityware's new tool, and seeing where it manifests...

Just do it the old-fashioned way. ;)

>> Why don't you integrate the .obj/ importer in MOI. Why
>> an independant add-on ?

>I'd be afraid that people would think that MoI supported polygon mesh data when it didn't really.

Hmm, sorry, but "stupid" ;) user can think a lot and I wouldn't limit the software to much for they. If you would allow to load mesh objects for presentation use than in the next step you could allow to export meshes with kept layer structure (3dm). As a meshing-only-user I miss this feature a lot. Any chance to get it in v3? Please.

Micha

Hi Micha,

> If you would allow to load mesh objects for presentation use

But that's the problem - currently it is not possible to load mesh objects in MoI for presentation use (as a shaded mesh display rather than as lines).

I do not currently have the mechanisms in place for various operations on mesh objects like selection, snapping, etc...

There is also a lot of potential for confusion in trying to support both mesh and NURBS objects since they are very different ways to represent 3D objects and it isn't easy to make all the NURBS tools work on mesh data instead.

- Michael

Hi Micha, the other thing I don't quite understand is why you are so intent on loading the mesh data back into Rhino. Rhino has some issues with handling mesh data in general - there are various restrictions like you can't use n-gons, and you can't have welded mesh points that have joined vertices but separate UVs and normals for each face.

Most people who are "mesh only" users are generating meshes to go into some more full featured polygon modeling program like Modo or Cinema4D. For these programs using OBJ or LWO format is the way to go - these formats handle mesh structures that are not allowed in 3DM mesh data (n-gons and welding).

Why are you so intent on trying to use Rhino as a mesh modeling program when it is not really a particularly good thing to use it for?

- Michael

I use MoI to create high quality and light meshes for rendering. MoI helped me often to get projects with complex models be done. :)
Also the MoI mesher could help to create light clean models for 3D PDF creation per simlab rhino plugin.

My biggest problem is, that I can't mesh all NURBS objects of a scene and the layers are keeped (best also the material names). If the meshes could be written to a 3dm file too, than this should be easy possible. Or could you enable 3dm mesh export without to think about the question of meshes in MoI?

Hi Micha,

> Or could you enable 3dm mesh export without to think
> about the question of meshes in MoI?

Yes, exporting mesh data as opposed to importing mesh data and handling it during normal modeling time in MoI are kind of separate things.

But I still have not really thought of a way to present a "meshed 3DM" file concept in the regular file dialog box that would not be potentially confusing. It would be a kind of 3DM file that you would export to that MoI would then not be able to read back in again, it could potentially lead someone to actually lose their NURBS model data since they could think "oh, I'm saving to a 3DM file so all my objects will be in there just as any regular 3DM model save", but for the type of 3DM file that you're asking for it would contain mesh data only and not be loadable back into MoI.

It's a kind of strange thing to try and fit into the program UI.

Note that Rhino does not have any kind of special "Meshed 3DM" file type to save to either...

- Michael

I understand your thoughts about the user faults. So, couldn't you not try add advanced features per ini file switches? A little ini switch could allow that a "Mesh2NURBS" 3dm is shown at the export UI (maybe only at the export, not the save dialog). If this is selected, the meshing dialog will popup. Only advanced users would use the ini switch. And as a last warning for the user - if the meshing UI popup, it's a good sign that a mesh is saved only. ;)

When you export moi stuff, you can select which items to export. You can do it by styles or by object name, for instance. You can save those as separate mesh layers, then import them separately into one scene in say, Modo or C4D. You can create your layers there as you go along. I agree with Michael - Rhino is the last application I would use to handle polygon meshes. It's not designed for it, and no other app uses .3dm as an import format for poly meshes.