Would you use a voxel data format to submit models?[ 8 vote(s) ]
1.	Yes, I would use it for some models.	7 / 88%
2.	Yes, it would enable me to submit unmeshable models.	1 / 13%
3.	No, I see no use.	0 / 0%

Hi there,
I browsed through the forum but coulnd't find a similar post so here it goes:

The output of some algorithms is inherently a voxel data set. If you were to 3D print this, you would have to generate a mesh based on the voxel data with all the problems and drawbacks that come with this step. In the end, shapeways would rasterize this mesh data set back to a voxel data set to send this to the 3D printer.

Why not hand in the voxel data set right away?

Data size? Ok, let's assume we need 2000^3 voxels (1 bit / voxel). So we have about 1GB of data. Even a simple run-length-encoder should be able to compress this down to a few MBs (except for Cantor dust ).

Data format? Come on: If somebody is able to generate voxel data, he/she will be happy to wrap it into whatever data format shapeways could come up with.

Cheers,
Tom

[Updated on: Fri, 07 October 2011 11:18 UTC]