Mesh to NURB

[evosoft]

HI All

I am a CAD developer working on a ViaCAD add-on to convert mesh data into precise NURBs.  Some months ago, Andrew was kind enough to get me going with 3D-Coat as a solution to retopologize mesh data prior to NURB conversion.  Combining the 3D-Coat Retopology tool with our Quad to NURB tool makes a significant difference in the resulting data.   

 

I'm now at the point where I could use more feedback on a workflow between 3D-Coat and ViaCAD Pro with my add-on.  If you have an interest in proving feedback, I have a fully functionally beta for Windows and Mac users.

 

http://www.masterviacad.com/powerpackoverview/ViaCADPro/index.html

 

Below is a video of my understanding of a possible workflow that could use some feedback from expert users of 3D-Coat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rDQCxGaLZ8&feature=youtu.be

 

 

Thanks

 

Tim

EvoSoft

 

 

 

[L'Ancien Regime]

An alternative workflow would be to import the mesh whether from surface mode or from a quad remesh to Modo as an .obj file and then use Power SubD NURBS for Modo plug in to turn it into a NURBS object. You could also change its format with Power TRanslators for Modo too.  

 

 

https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/plugins/power-subd-nurbs/

 

 

https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/plugins/power-translators/

 

You could then export your work as IGES, SAT, STEP or Rhino.

 

 

Translation takes place at 2:30 mark

Edited April 21, 2015 by L'Ancien Regime

[evosoft]

The SubD to NURB technology from IntegrityWare is excellent.  In fact, that is one of licensed technologies driving PowerPack.  What is different about this possible workflow is that  ViaCAD also provides a collection of surface & solid modeling tools ( based upon the Dassault ACIS modeling engine).  This enables us to also expose tools such as blending, chamfering, shelling, local operations, and boolean operations as part of the same workflow.

 

For example, in the video below an OBJ mesh is converted into an open NURB surface and stitched into a solid.  Finally a network of radial blends is added to smooth some of the edges.

 

http://www.csi-concepts.com/Demo/videos/ornLeaf.mp4

 

 

 

Kind Regards

Tim

 

 

 

[L'Ancien Regime]

OK that is an impressive work flow I have to admit

[AlphaGrunt]

Awesome stuff Tim, just send you a pm.

[TimmyZDesign]

It looks like the conversion to nurbs is dependent on the edgeflow of the polygonal mesh, am I right? For example, the rhino model in your demo would already have a nice curve around the tail/head/leg areas if there was an edgeloop there on the original polygonal mesh, correct? That way it would be easier to break the mesh up into nice parts or perform edits when it becomes a nurbs object. So, if we used edgeloop guides when performing automatic retopo in 3D-Coat, then I guess we would get a nicer resultant mesh after the nurbs conversion.

I think it should be a priority of your plug-in to get the best possible logical placement of nurbs curves after the conversion, instead of just random patches stitched together all over the body. It seems to do a much better job with a subdivision surface with nice edgeflow as opposed to an autoretopo mesh with bad (illogical) edgeflow. I am guessing the Zbrush autoretopo algorithm will probably yield better results for this than the current 3D-Coat autoretopo algorithm. Have you tried it yet?