There are thousands plug in(s) available for 3D Studio: for sure
there are some of them dedicated to translation from 3DS to STL data
format and vice versa. I heard there is at least one dedicated plug in
for 3D Studio MAX able to output faced geometry to NURBS surfaces.
Mose'
mose@eur.autodesk.com
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: from 3ds to stl
Author: info@spline.nl (Delft Spline Systems) at ccgate
Date: 12/12/96 19.00
Spilios Zervos wrote:
>
>we have a number of 3ds files that are wireframe models, structured in
>triangles. Any idea how we can convert them to surface models? The next
>step is to make them solids and get stl files, but we do need the surfaces
>for other reasons.
>
As fas as I know the traingles in 3D Studio are surface information:
you can shade the geometry, so it is more than just wireframe !
Conversion to STL (triangles too) is easy, except for the normals:
STL needs a normal vector for each triangle, 3D Studio does not
(perhaps it is in the sequence of the 3 points). If you just choose
one of both sides for a normal vector you can convert easily using some
conversion software.
For instance our free DeskProto demo (see or Web Site) can
import DXF files from 3D Studio, and export the geometry in STL format.
I do not know whether or not this solves the problem. In case you need
conversion to real NURBS surfaces the solution is more difficult:
you then would need high end (expensive) reverse engineering
software like Surfacer from Imageware.
Regards,
Lex Lennings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Delft Spline Systems, The Netherlands.
Active in CAD/CAM, Rapid Prototyping and NC milling
Email : info@spline.nl
Web : http://www.spline.nl
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