I have a 3D object I would like to make a model of, but it is defined as an IsoSurface (Implicit surface - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_surface ). Is it possible to generate a model from this directly instead of having to convert it to a polygon mesh first?
Hi xlcus, yes, you'll have to convert it to a polygon mesh. I'm not aware of any tools that could do that for you. If you know of any, please let me know! Cheers, Bart
Many file formats support implicit surface definitions. We don't support those currently as most of those file formats are not well defined mathematically in their implicit surface definitions (the original editor knows how to treat them, but the file format is reverse engineered so we don't have good details of specifics, particularly of the blending between surfaces). :cry:
You can use Mathematica to both display your implicit surface and then export it as an STL file. Something like: plt = ContourPlot3D[...you implicit surface details...] Export["myobject.stl",plt,"STL"] The surface likely has its normals pointing in the wrong direction. Use Meshlab to fix it.
I think the HyperFun polygonizer can do this: http://hyperfun.org/wiki/doku.php?id=hyperfun:hfp_documentat ion&s=stl The page says that it can save it as STL.