dangre

Ah yes, that makes sense. I think this concept will work. I just need to work on my workflow. Thanks a ton for explaining it to me.

Daniel, Yes, that did work, but wow 800k polys and 8MB. The original was only 8k polys and 0.5MB. I can now do the edit work I need to in 3DC but will have to do some retopo work to get it back to a usable size to import back into Solidworks (20k max triangles [about 10k polys]). I have had good results just exporting as a .stl and 'simplifying'. Better results with small details and simplifying large areas than the auttopo. Just curious why 3DC needs to scale 100x when other software does not? Sorry for being a novice here, I'm just learning... Just to let you know, I did try upscaling to 2M polys with the .stl file but it still looked 'jaggy'. I'll stick to .obj and maybe try other import formats.

I have attached the .obj file below. As stated in above, I want add textures and use some of the organic smoothing tools of 3DC to my dimensionaly correct CAD model. The ultimate goal is to create the actual part with 3D printing (SLA) or cnc. I can open this file in many other CAD systems and the mesh opens with 'smooth' curves and sharp edges but you can see in my attached picture above it doesnt open very 'cleanly' in 3DC. Maybe I am just using the wrong settings. I know I am using 3DC for a different purpose (engineering/product development) but I see a wealth of awesome tools that are not readily available with the 'engineering' CAD software I use. EDIT: I was trying to open a .stl import and just tried opening the file as a .obj (only file I could attache to this forum) and it seems to work much better. It still wasn't 'clean' but possibly workable. I tried to subdivide and it just made the sharp edges more 'jagged'. I had to 'scale' up the model from 8000 polys to 200,000 polys. See attached picture. The strange thing is it looks fine when I first import it but when I 'merge' the quality goes out the door. LOGO BADGE BLANK.obj

Sorry if this has been covered before but I can't seem to find my answer in the forums. I am importing non-organic CAD files (.stl) that has sharp edges and specific cylinders/curves. When I import these, I can't seem to find the correct procedure (scale/subdivide/etc) to give adquate resolution. Unless I increase the scale (sorry for using wrong terms) to +4million polygons I lose most of my detail (round objects look like octogons with extra noise). Even then I don't get anywhere near the geometry of the orginal mesh. I plan to use 3DC to add textures to CAD objects from SolidWorks/Rhino/MeshLab/etc. The .stl only has 8700 polys. Should I be importing into voxels or just surface mode? The object is a 1" diameter badge for a beer bottle. The images I have attached are of the solid model and .stl import as seen from SolidWorks and the 3DC import scaled up to 100,000 from 8700. I'm sure I'm just doing something wrong. Thanks in advance.

I have looked at Resurf3D but the reviews have been not so good... http://www.rhino3d.com/resources/?id=3267 I just found this: http://www.mesh2surface.com/

Hello all, Dan here. I am an engineer, yes one of those. I'm looking at different solutions to go from messy 3D scan data to SolidWorks. My business doesnt justify affording the expensive reverse engineering software out there (GeoMagic, Rapidform, etc at $20k+). I normally work with rectangles, cylinders, and an occasional cone when I feel real crazy. 3DCoat has opened my eyes to a new world. I have already cleaned up some very organic scan data. It has allowed me to massage some data I normally could never work with and get usable data. I am currently working on some model airplanes for a client which would have been a real pain with SolidWorks. Now the clincher is to see how I can interpolate those boring rectangles, cylinders, and cones an engineer needs to work with. I know 3DCoat is not meant for that but maybe I can find some complimentary software solutions that will help me out. I've seen a few hard surface tutorials out there but any links to others would be greatly appreciated. Awesome software!!!

I am using 3DC just for this purpose. I have a 3D scanner for a small part of my engineering/design business and am finding 3DC very helpful to convert scan data to useful import to SolidWorks. It works very well if not better than expensive coversion software I have demo'd for organic shapes. But, for geometric shapes, I am still looking for software that will interpolate flat surfaces, cylinders, cones, and smooth curves. The big guys (Rapiform, GeoMagic, etc.) do a stellar job of this but thier $20k price is much more than my small scanning side of my business can justify. I will be researching T-Splines and others but after months of research I havnt found the economical solution. Thanks for bring this topic up. I am very happy with 3DC for organic shapes and the price for just retopo is worth it by itself.