Look at the following page:

http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~csverma/BioMesh/

They also have scattered data from medical imaging

I use Rhinoceros 3D for the conversion. It has a function called "Mesh from Points" which creates a polygon surface over the points of the point cloud.

Dear College

For CAD model You need triangular meshes. In link below you can find some solution for conversion:

http://lcni.uoregon.edu/~dow/Projects/Brain_casting/Point_cloud_to_mesh.html

http://www.vrmesh.com/

http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/

or you can try make own parser to obj open format:

http://www.eg-models.de/formats/Format_Obj.html

You can import this format to most CAD programs

best regards

Geomagic Studio also provides a function which lets you switch directly between a point cloud and CAD phase

I would recommend to use a professional CAD-system as CATIA. It has special functions to create CAD-surfaces very easily from point clouds:

http://www.3ds.com/de/products/catia/portfolio/catia-version-6/v6-portfolio/d/digital-product-experience/s/catia-design/p/reverse-engineering/?cHash=ad59381a9af032b2b77a788ea1e08926

GOMinspect might be a good freeware alternative.

You can use the python script "Point Cloud Skinner" for the 3D software Blender. It is easy to use and is free. Here is the link to a videotutorial:

http://www.blendernation.com/2012/01/12/python-script-point-cloud-skinner/

If you're more interested in the mathematics of how to do scattered data interpolation, I would recommend checking out Greg Fasshauer's text on meshfree methods. The book emphasizes radial basis function that essentially weights the values from each of your points so that the weight value is one at the data point location and quickly drops to zero far from that point.

Google for 'reverse engineering' and the name of a software that you have available.

It is usually not straight forward to generate CAD models from scanned information. Most of the time you have to deal with overlapping point clouds, gaps, irrelevant points, measuring noise and so on. In all cases you need to put your own intelligence to work to interpret the raw data in the right way.

There are professional solutions like Geomagic and Rapidform which do a good job. I know from experience that Rhino also has good tools to manage point clouds, and patch surfaces or meshes over them. The most realistic approach seems to me to find out which 3d software you have available, and then try to find a tutorial on reverse engineering with that software. Good luck.

In my opinion, CATIA cloud capability best fits CFD requirements. You can use this feature to import scanned model into Catia and then export it to a meshing software like ICEM or Gambit.

Definitely Geomagic Studio (as already said by Juliane Hinz) if you want a real solid CAD model. If you only need a 2D surface or a 3D mesh you can use the other alternatives described before.

If you want to edit the scanned object in solid modelling software like Autodesk Inventor or Solidworks the best way is Geomagic. It provides you with tools to filter points, create a surface and create a REAL solid model that can be modified afterwards by extrusions, holes, etc.

Rapidform is a waste of time and money compared to Geomagic in my opinion. It has not the same functionalities.

I agree that Geomagic Studio (or whatever its name now is) probably gives the best mesh among the classic, for-pay programs.

Geomagic family tools are considered as state-of-the-art. There are also some domestic (Polish) commercial tools available (e.g. Mesh3D). We have been developing 3D scanners and processing software for 15 years. Please feel free to contact me (it is just a few blocks away). :)

Best wishes!

you can use a reverse engineering software (for example,

Geomagic Studios by Raindrop Inc.

GeoMagic User Manual, Raindrop Geomagic, Research Triangle, NC,

USA; 2004.

Thank you SO much for your help. I think Geomagic Studio will do the job. They say thats it's Automatic Surfacing feature converts mesh to NURBS surfaces. This would work perfectly for me, as I need a very good surface quality for further aerodynamic optimization.

Here are some screenshots of the 3D scan. As you can see the file is far from perfect. I'm going to use the Geomagic Studio trial version and I'll let you know as soon as I'll get the results.

Another one

What you need is reverse engineering software (Raindrop Geomagic, Inus Rapidform, Polyworks). The software imports point clouds and transforms it to polygons and nurbs. If you have further questions don't hesitate to ask.

Good luck

Gernot

Thank you for all your valuable comments. Another option is to use an plug-in like Kubit that it is designed for use 3D large dataset into CAD programmes.

You can try Netfabb or GOM Inspect as well. Both can be used to make the mesh 'leak-free'

You can use CATIA v5 and including the Digital Shape Editor module and after continue on Generative Shape Design

What are your plans with the CAD model?

Also good scanners produce an STL file instead of a point cloud. Do you have the STL file? Is that good enough?

Krzystof,

I am getting quite curious, could you inform us how it went until now? In the mean time I found that the geomagics test version only saves in its own native format. I had to search our faculty for a full version. (fortunately we had one available)

Did you succeed in creating a suitable model?

Try http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/inventor_mesh

For mesh manupulations try Mesh Mixer (http://www.meshmixer.com/) Its powerful and free.

Hi,

you should have a look at the software PolyWorks Inspector

Standard package from http://www.innovmetric.com that enables point cloud engineering workflows. I think their customers are all the known automobile brands. I worked with polyworks a couple of years ago it provided the best matching algorhythms for shell registration and it includes all part alignment methods for virtual assembly. Furthermore virtual assembly analysis tools are included. I think this is the best software for your purpose but it is expensive!!!

Probably you can get an educational license?

Try hard and good luck

Gernot

Hi,

If you want to build yourself the NURBS surface (mathematical object in CAD systems) that interpolates or best fits in the least square sense a cloud of points, you can read the great "The nurbs book" and code Gordon patches for instance. There is also a free library called nurbs ++ that implements methods from the nurbs book in C++. It's very nice to understand what's behind geometry manipulation and to see the power of NURBS. Good luck !

François

As stated above, it really depends on what you want to do with your model. Besides GeoMagic Studio that was mentioned before, you can also try MeshLab (http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/) which has the advantage of being open source (=free). There is a number of filters you can apply to your model in order to clean and convert your point-cloud model.

Hope it helps,

good luck,

Panos.

Geomagic studio is the best followed by rapidform then vr mesh. If you need something free you may use blender 3d with a spcialized plug in

Yes I would agree Meshlab is a good option. Also for reviewing point clouds from say LIDAR - Cloud Compare is a good option Mac and Windows I believe

Mesh Lab is also very helpful and again it is open source and Mac/PC

You can also try using Rhino. Here you can have a look:

http://wiki.mcneel.com/rhino/reverseengineering

I have used CATIA to do this in order to use in ABAQUS, but I can't merge instances( and create mesh).

Thank you guys for all your comments. I finally used Solid Works with Power Surface feature. It is similar to rapid surfacing in Unigraphics NX but it runs much faster. Geomagic with it's auto-conversion feature failed to convert the STL model, because it was too complicated.

I think CATIA does the trick

Hi,

In addition to all above, Geomagic Design X makes convertion of .stl into .igs so easy even for complex parts like bone models. So, you can easily obtain solid model from this .igs file by using a CAD program (CATIA).

I recommend this way for complicated 3D scans:

Start with Meshlab - there are 2 function that will simplyfy mesh.

- connect mesh (try to move parts manually),

- delete single points and errors,

- connect triangles to create single surface (use Meshlab's dedicated function).

- proceed to postpocessing in any CAD program but I recomend OpenCad for this step as it is capable of opening all kind of CAD, Mesh and Graphic files.