I need this like yesterday. Surface creation by 3d snap

MDesign

I've been working with scan data to create objects that fit that mesh data. Having never done this type of work before a few months ago. It's been a challenging experience developing a workflow to accomplish it, I've got a pretty good work flow figured out to keep the time down about as much as possible but just today I spent about an 1.5 hours working with curves to create a smooth loft surface to design a product against. Ever since I started down this path, I've always thought there had to be a tool out there that just let me create a surface by snapping to the mesh vertexes. It could cut my example time at least in half if not have it done in 15min (in my dreams I suppose).

Is there any custom features that do this or is there any work by onshape in the background on this front? Is there any other software that does this? Even if it was the only function of the software and it did it well by creating hard, smooth surfaces that onshape could use for modeling against, I'd go though that extra step.

Ideally I'd just like to snap to a series of vertexes in any order I choose to get a surface close to the mesh contour without the need for splines, profile this or profile that, guides . Sounds like a tall task but I'm no programmer. Being able to connect them together with tangent, fillets, etc would be a bonus.

Right now it takes a series of intersecting 3d splines to get the job done. if I miss an intersection that the curves are supposed to cross at OR i just don't like the curvature and need to adjust it, it takes fair bit of time to get that corrected and get the points in the proper order to get the spline(s) right.

I've been searching for a while for this and it seems like Mesh Snap recently released in Plasticity is getting pretty close with Constrained Surface Tool and Mesh Snapping

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5FREB5BGzc

https://doc.plasticity.xyz/solid/constrained-surface

jelte_steur814

I think the edit curve feature just released today may help you out a lot.
just create some splines on some mesh points, create a boundary surface or loft with it, and create some edit curve features in between to tweak everything to your liking.

MDesign

Oh my. Yes, Thank you, that is a much better workflow than I had to do before. Not quite what I had in mind for ideal, but that's gonna save a lot of time. with the current method.

S1mon

Plasticity's constrained surface is apparently a Parasolid feature which they exposed. I suspect Onshape could do the same fairly easily if they wanted.

steve_shubin

@MDesign

Sounds like work similar to converting point cloud data to a mesh. In this case, maybe it is a cloud that is not real dense.

Maybe some of the links below can help.

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/22643/what-to-do-with-a-point-cloud-in-onshape

In the link above, Neil mentioned MeshLab (a free open source program)

https://www.meshlab.net

Pay attention to the tabs at the top of the page when you get to the link

Never used MeshLab myself, but Google says it will convert point cloud info into a mesh

You also might want to look at using an iPhone to bring in LIDAR data directly into Onshape.

MDesign

I think they want to. Haha.

MDesign

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/109046#Comment_109046

my data is already in stl mesh format from a laser scanner provided by the client. I have to use mesh editing software to reduce/clean the data and get it to a managable size that doesn't choke onshape or my pc to death. I'll get multiple scans for a single project becuase of the nature of the project and small space you can't scan everything you need at once. And the files are often upwards of 100mb each. I have to cut them down to at least 10% of that to be able to import and work with them. What I'd like is to be able to do (for lack of better terminology) is trace over the stl mesh with surfacing and then design my parts against those surfaces.

steve_shubin

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/109048#Comment_109048

From everything I've seen, MeshLab has tools made for getting a mesh down to a manageable size. In fact, that is what Neil suggested to be used for doing so.

This video shows it being reduced by changing one field.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHKOJ1dbyJI

By the time the football turns black (2 min. 10 sec.), I already see the triangulated mesh.

There are also smoothing tools in the program and tools for fixing holes

Looks like an extremely powerful program for dealing with points and meshes

But I can certainly understand you're wanting a more hands on approach, as I have done the same in the past.

steve_shubin

@MDesign

Had a hard time getting the link posted above

Here it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHKOJ1dbyJI

MDesign

You may have misunderstood what my intention was. I have no desire to edit these mesh files in onshape if that's what I implied. I use other tools to do that. I've explored meshlabs well. Mesh editing tools are not the subject of my discussion here.

steve_shubin

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/109053#Comment_109053

I obviously did. LOL

It sounded to me like what you were POSSIBLY trying to do was start with a point cloud. And then bring in JUST ENOUGH information of that point cloud converted to mesh, into Onshape, to where you could quickly set up an easily modifiable surface using Onshape’s toolset.

My thinking was in that trying to do as much work in MeshLab as possible, that when in Onshape, you wouldn’t be working over a heavy mesh which can be no fun, especially when the back parts of a mesh are getting hard to differentiate from the front parts of a mesh.

So I was thinking that possibly by refining, downing sizing points, and smoothing as much of that mesh within a program like MeshLab as possible, that the highly simplified mesh, would possibly be easier for snapping to, when in Onshape.

A whole lot of guessing on my part as to what you were possibly trying to accomplish !!!

Anyways, sounds like you have it under control. So just excuse my blather. LOL

MDesign

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/109054#Comment_109054

Haha. No worries. Been there done that. Thanks for explaining. I refered to mesh data as a surface. Never thought of point clouds as being interchangable terms with mesh data. Here's screen shot of where I start in onshape with mesh data. My goal is to fit a fuel tank under that seat.