How to show 3D object that comes from STL (Surface Tesselation Language) Format

Question

Is it possible to show a object from a *.stl (Surface Tesselation Language) file in WPF?

Or is there a way to convert it to a supported format?

The file is created by a 3Dscanner.

Thanks

Answer 1

What is the data structure of Surface Tesselation Language?

Answer 2

Hi liangtom,

I don't know much about the file format. In Notepad it looks like this.

STL generated by Pagoda's 3D-Viewer-OCX                                         {ò\U¿"Ræ>ñQ¤>‹q—ASçz@T>wA‚¯–AFm@>xA†z—A

ªt@®œyAµóU¿ Ðä>•\£>‹q—ASçz@T>wA†z—A

ªt@®œyA-˜AöÙ~@ɲyADòT¿øë>Ý Ÿ>‹q—ASçz@T>wA-˜AöÙ~@ɲyAu›˜A)ù…@y-wAjJU¿€ˆê>¶£ž>u›˜A)ù…@y-wA-˜AöÙ~@ɲyAð˜AIh„@ßzA»gU¿&ê>Ç–ž>u›˜A)ù…@y-wAð˜AIh„@ßzAu‘™AŒŠ@IZyA†–S¿ Òê>§>u‘™AŒŠ@IZyAð˜AIh„@ßzA.Ê™AL‡‡@ <|A/V¿Bã>V‹¤>u‘™AŒŠ@IZyA.Ê™AL‡‡@ <|A3SšAG<@b{A V¿ä¶å>_Ρ>u‘™AŒŠ@IZyA3SšAG<@b{A„šA¾5@nCwAKÆT¿Hä>¯ª>3SšAG<@b{A.Ê™AL‡‡@ <|A|æšA»ÑŒ@¿=~A¯Z¿9/Ö>

I found two tools (Meshlab and Blender) which can open and edit the file format. They also can export the file in the *.obj format or something simular.

My program starts the 3D scans und stores the stl files. I want to show a small preview of this scans in a ListView. Therefor I must convert them automaticly.

Thanks in advance

Answer 3

hmmmm!!!

@_@

Answer 4

Can you give a code sample you use with  STL？

Answer 5

Thanks for your help.

I try to find a converter.

Answer 6

good news

Answer 7

You can take a look at ZAM3D:

http://www.erain.com/products/zam3d/DefaultPDC.asp

It's a 3d application that generates XAML. It can import .3ds and .dxf files, so you'd need a different software to transform from STL to one of those. The best at importing and exporting multiple formats, IMHO, is Rhinoceros (http://www.rhino3d.com), a great piece of software at its price. You can even ask them to include XAML amongst their supported formats, they're very good at listening to their user base. If it's a one time thing, you can download and use their evaluation version, its only limitation is that it only let's you save 25 times.

-Sergi

Answer 8

Thanks Sergi. I will have a look on it.

Answer 9

BTW, I've just found Rhino indeed exports to XAML:

http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.aspx/McNeel/XAMLExport.html

Answer 10

If Blender (open source) will read the STL files, then you could use Blender to do one of two things:
1. There is a Blender plugin that exports XAML (although I find it very lacking at the moment.)
2. You can export the model/scene from within Blender to the DXF format, which can then be read by ZAM3D, where you can then reexport it out to ZAML.

But, ZAM3D will cost you a couple hundred bucks, but it does ok.

None of these products are ideal... just the best you can do "on the cheap" right now.

I find that ZAM3D is extremely weak in the geometry building department, but the best thing in the price range for XAML export, although they have a long way to go there too, and I'm not seeing any progress out of them.

I find Blender to be very non-intuitive (glad this is a tech area... I'm hoping to duck the flames on this), but it does have the ability to do a good handful of geometry operations, and gives you the ability to UV map the models.  One of the biggest problems for me with that tool is I am new to it, and it seems that a lot has changed in features like UVmapping, and all the tutorials I find are based on the old way which just confuses me.

My point... it's a lot of work learning what you need to know about Blender to clean up your models (if you need to), and ZAM3D's XAML exporting leaves a lot to be desired (including documentionation on various ways to use these exports in a tool like expression Blend, but there is enough to cobble together what you need I bet.

Jim T

Answer 11

I converted STL to 3DS using blender but ZAM3D was not able use the .3DS file exported from  Blender (May be I have not configured correctly). After many unsuccessful attempts I tried MeshLab. Now Am able to convert STL to 3DS and also Am able to convert 3DS to XAML using ZAM3D. Thanks to Jim T  & Sergi  for the ideas. - Shan