I just discovered that Modo 601 will export to 3dm. My file (.3dn) will open in Rhino but not in Moi3d. Why wouldn't it open in Moi?

Thanks

Hi Mike, it's because Modo is writing polygon mesh geometry to the 3DM file and not NURBS objects.

There are numerous different kinds of things that can be stored in 3DM files, like polygon meshes, NURBS solids, curves, annotation text, dimensions, spotlights, etc....

Of all those kinds of things MoI is only focused on dealing with NURBS data, it does not read in other kinds of data types like polygon mesh data.

If you want to work with polygon mesh data, you will need to load that data into a polygon mesh editing program and not into MoI - MoI is specifically focused on working with NURBS data at modeling time. You can export polygon mesh data out from MoI but not read it back in again.

- Michael

I understand what you wrote but what's modo doing writing to .3dm if you can't really use it. Why will Rhino open it and what for? I am just trying to understand why modo does this at all.

Hi Mike,

> Why will Rhino open it and what for?

Well, Rhino is a quasi-dual mode program that can deal with both polygon mesh and NURBS geometry, although really most of it is focused mostly on the NURBS side of things.

So if you wanted to get mesh geometry into Rhino for whatever reason (possibly just as a kind of template guide to snap on to when reconstructing something), that would be a way to do it.

It's somewhat weird though because the mesh objects are basically a different category of objects in Rhino and don't usually directly interact with NURBS objects, there is a whole different set of commands for doing some mesh related stuff.

Usually it's better to take your mesh geometry into an actual polygon mesh editing focused program instead though.

What is your particular goal with trying to write data from Modo into MoI ?

- Michael

It is possible to get your Modo data converted to NURBS using this plugin though: http://www.luxology.com/store/Power_SubD-NURBS/

modo's 3dm support is more useful for marketing than exchanging data. OBJ format works fine for exchanging the same data.

What is your particular goal with trying to write data from Modo into MoI ?

More of just to learn how all of these 3D technology worlds fit together and relate to each other. Your explanations are always very helpful!

Thanks