Lemondo,
Sounds to me like you need to go back a few steps and find a way to keep quads…
Another alternative may be to try to regen a quad mesh based off of the existing points… Paraform used to put out a free utility called Points to Pollys… If I recall, there was an option to convert a point cloud into a tri or a quad mesh…
You may also want to tweak the settings on inport to ZB… I think that there are some settings that remove duplicate points… I had a battle with that before.
IC
lemonnodo- Have you tried to export the file from Zbrush with the Quad button selected?
I haven’t tried it so not sure how well it would do the job.
In Maya there is a cleanup poly’s routine that you can choose to create tri’s or Quad’s. Again, sure how well it works cause it’s one thing to have a tri here and there, but with an STL file the whole thing is tri’s.
I tweaked the import settings but that results in mediocre results. The best result has holes… Which I cannot close in ZB. And they are plenty…
I have a .stp file which looks great in my rhino eval. BUT the export from rhino does not yield any usable quads either. Yes, there are WAY less tri’s than in the .stl file but unfortunately any change of the model after the import ony yieds mesh imperfections galore. Drop it in PM and modify it and the revenge of the tri’s and the inhomogenous distribution of the automated tesselation algorithms wreck any effort to add fine detail. Look terrible.
It is very unfortunate the the unified skin function is converting everything into a soft turd(even with smooth setting to 1). Otherwise that would be a killer funktion for that purpose.
Here is the sample:
Top is the qued file RHino produced. Tons of holes and overlaping geometry. I tried other settings which were inferior or unusable because of the distribution of quads/ tri’s. So that’s a no go.
Middle is the triangulated original. It seems that there is no way to import that into ZBrush for further processing other than texturing. Once you touch the geometry… All hell breaks loose.
The bottom piece is the Unified Skin turd. Looks good but is not usable for my purpose. The piece has lost any dimensional resemblance to the original and the surface still has the steps from the rough smooting. Smoothing helps but after smoothing it out it resembles nothing even remotely close to the original.
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Either I rebuild it in XSI or Modo or there is just no way back once stuff is triangulated…
Any other ideas?
Lemo
or was it Onelmado or lemmono or lemando or lwmondo or lemonnodo…
hey sorry for the misspelling your name, won’t happen again, promise.
The part looks like it began as a nurbs model. Does it have a life after being a polygon model? If so, it could remodelled quickly as a solid. Then you would have it for all worlds.
Ah, no problem with the name. I think I stick to Lemo. The origin comes out of my game development time… No Harm done.
Your last Sentence does not compute with me… Do you mean I should remodel it simply with a quad modeler and then have it for all purposes?
Greetings!
Lemo
One thing about the STL file format. It can only accomodate triangles. No quads, no N-gons. Rhino 4 (yet to be released) is supposed to have a quadrangulate function, but don’t know if that will work.
I think that bpmx is saying that it looks like a nurbs object that was converted to a mesh, and that it might be easy to reconstruct the nurbs object?
I also have a .stp file which looks curve based and not tesselated in Rhino. The only problem I have is how to get that OUT of RHino and IN to Zbrush to be able to detail it with the PM… Sighhhh Soon my head will explode:rolleyes:
Lemo
Or… Maybe WAY better. Could I create a Plane in ZBrush with all the detail and then ‘Project’ or ‘Wrap’ or ‘Deform’ that IN Rhino to match the piece?!
Lemo
No, I’m refering to using either surface modelling or solid modelling- both of which are NURBS based and yeild a more widely manufacturable part, being able export in a variety of exchangable formats. But if this model only has life as polygon model, what I’m saying doesn’t have merrit. Except that it’s a very simple model to produce with a solid modeller.
In the solid modelling world neutral export options range in compexity from the simplest being 1, the most complex & robust being 4.
1-DXF-Not even really used anymore by the maker (Autodesk) except in flat drawing export.
2-IGES- very robust nuetral surface format with many options here. But still old and does not carry solid data.
3-SAT- Finally a true solid format being able to hold model data, but also mass properties, as well as assembly data.
4-STEP-Same as above but even more robust and seems to be supported further than SAT.
STL is kind of a specialized format that was created to perform be used by rapid prototyping machines. The fact that some CAM packages are finally showing interest in providing code to run toolpaths over STL files is the part of this entire thread.
Thanks a million for your comments! I think I see clearly now. Then… the .stp file I have is the root of all evil. Or better said, or written, the origin of my geometry data. There is nothing before that. To bad the conversion to the quad World is not possible in a way which allows sucessfull modification with ZBrush (or other tools). My XSI Package uses curves etc… And it has a great toolset to ‘loft’ polymeshes from all sorts of surfaces… But I cannot convert .stp into .xsi. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Caught between the formats again…
Sighhhh
Lemo
Actually, What I was trying to say earlier is that I think it started as a solid. STL is not a format that you start with. It is an export file type.
So as I look at the part, I see features that I recognize as features found in solid modellers.
Where did it come from? And what is your goal with it?
Oh my mistake I see that that you said "stp. That is an extention for STEP. That can only come from a Solid modeller.
Do you have access to the STP? If so bring that into Rhino, and export as OBJ.
Alternatively if you have Maya, turn on the IGES plugin. Then back in Rhino, import the STP, export as IGES. Then import same IGES into Maya, convert NURB>Polygon, Then save as OBJ.
I have the .STP. And I downloaded the trial from Rhino. The problem is that, regardless how carefull I adjust the export parameters, the .obj poly output is unusable for my ZBrush detailling purpose. It’s the top picture in my compilation. And there was worse 8-).
I have XSI as 3D Package. SUper Modeler! All sorts of curve to poly options with fine control… Unfortunately they only support a couple of formats 8-(. I can read 3ds files, .obj, fbx, and .xsi of course. I have PointOven which read Lightwave stuff. I needed tht because I have Modo on my Macintosh… And of course… Modo has a retarded .OBJ output… So I have to use .LW/O to exchange…
I guess I just turn that Job down… sniffff. My first opportunity to actually earn a buck with ZB… :(.
Lemo
PS:Goal is to ‘carve’ pattern into that Handle which will be mashined a few times then. Simple, stupid Alpha Projection in PM. That’s it… But you need a resonably ‘dense’ and homogenous Mesh for that. And it seems I can’t get there with the data I get. Except when I would rebuild it and thus control the mesh creation from scratch. A matter of budget… Not my decision.
I have rhino 3 (legally). I could try exporting it to iges for you as suggested.
Please send it to me at billrobertson42 at gmail dot com if you want me to give it a shot. I’m still running around this evening (almost 11:00!) but if I get it soon I’ll have it for you before I go to bed.
Thanks! I saw that XSI can read IGES. I got the IGES Data now in XSI. Well, one step further 8-). Now the adventure starts how I can shrinkwrap a plane onto the surface…
Lemo
Hey Lemonnado,
If your alpha PM actually looks more like stencil (without gradient shades of grey) this can be done without modelling it!
If you can afford to do the geometry in something like Illustrator, a path can be made.
MasterCAM can read the path in an operation called Pocketing with Islands.
Your art is simply projected onto the your existing .stp file. It’s already got a surface! Furthermore, a different surface can be created for the path to follow.
If this sounds good. I could help you further. Email me if you want to talk about this further.
That sounds interesting. In the meantime I also downloaded the trial of DeskProto 4.0. I do not know how that product measures up against other products which are similar but it was great to see that it can digest a 200MB .STL file coming from a highres ZBrush Plane which I deformed with Alphas in the PM. It also shows the simulated result which was interesting for me as it clearly shows how the tool actually affects the surface of a block of material.
Thanks to all who brought me up to speed! Very interesting stuff!
Lemo
PS:My Wife HATES you guys hahahaha. I’m already training my ‘need this toy’ look haha.
Hey lemonnado-
how’s the project going? Did you gt it into Zbrush OK?