STL Mesh Rendering

Scapegoat SP · 2012-11-15T09:48:16

Hey All, I want to render a mesh which is stored in the .STL format (a small part of the file is given below) and control it via interactions from the mouse. solid 20110519125647 facet normal -0.334931 -0.236570 -0.912061 outer loop vertex 10.481026 1.232170 4.632938 vertex 10.542211 1.232170 4.610470 vertex 10.542211 1.145546 4.632938 endloop endfacet facet normal -0.174629 -0.346906 -0.921499 outer loop vertex 10.669180 1.030518 4.632938 vertex 10.743861 1.030518 4.618786 vertex 10.743861 0.992924 4.632938 endloop endfacet facet normal -0.117726 -0.352012 -0.928562 outer loop vertex 10.844687 0.959465 4.632938 vertex 10.743861 1.030518 4.618786 vertex 10.844687 1.030518 4.606003 endloop endfacet Now, this continues to about 80,000 to 140,000 faces, depending on the file. I have written a basic program to read these meshes using fopen but it is very inefficient (takes more than 10 min for the smallest files). I have also implemented a custom ArcBall which works on any geometry after it has been rendered. It would be really nice if someone can give me a better way to handle these files.

NeHe Productions Affiliates

Started by scap3y October 30, 2012 08:58 AM

11 comments, last by scap3y 11 years, 5 months ago

scap3y

105

Author

October 30, 2012 02:34 PM

Maybe simpler to learn and integrate a 3rd party API (Assimp etc) rather than learn how to parse file formats from scratch. At least consider it one more good time before continuing. Both paths will be beneficial to your learning.

Okay, thanks.

scap3y

105

Author

November 05, 2012 11:01 AM

Does anyone have any references to documentation regarding Assimp..? I have been trying since the past week and I haven't been able to even get the importer to fire up.. The documentation given in the site of the source code isn't very comprehensive and the sample codes just do not work.

scap3y

105

Author

November 15, 2012 09:48 AM

So, I have tried for the past week without any luck with Assimp (no proper documentation, etc) and I have implemented a pretty efficient STL Rendering system using VTK. If there are any updates/changes, I will probably update it in the VTK forum (since now it has become completely unrelated to NeHe).

To everyone who replied - thank you.

STL Mesh Rendering

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STL Mesh Rendering

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