Tips for freeware to mesh point clouds

[Mrz00m]

Here are some tricks I learned when working with point clouds. Some hyperlinks to free apps and some parameters as a .zip file, which are suitable for point clouds (for versions later 1.99 perhaps as it currently omits MB3D samples located on the zero edges)


Meshlab has a version 2016 which is most recent, get meshlab 2016, it also does cloud to mesh using >filters>remesh>screened poisson mesh gen

The cloud needs normals to make a mesh, the more refined the normals, the better them mesh.

Meshlab can simplify the resulting mesh very well... using filters>remesh>quandratic edge

Meshlab can edit your mesh too... select connected polygons, goes through the entire fractal and keeps only the outer wall. inside it you will often find thousands of voids. you can then invert the selection and erase the voids.

Cloud compare freeware is faster to render 15mn samples into mesh, i have it on 8 cores. fast. select the cloud file or the mesh button will be greyed out. use the lime green dodecahedron button to mesh...

the only value of poisson mesh gen that counts a lot is the octree depth... 8 is a rough mesh, 10 is precise, 12 is overkill, it does more polygons than point samples.

cloud compare can also seperate your cloud into component parts if they parts are not connected, using ht CCCC button, called label connected components

cloud compare is good with colors, and it should be possible to make the mesh and then color per vertex based on the cloud point colors. MB3D coders please perhaps check which point cloud format is the best for sending colors into appz like cloud-compare which is an industry standard. then we can have color fractals

MeshMixer can slice the resulting mesh (so can netfabb) and meshmixer can generate 3D printing supports and pillar posts to print the fractal easily. in meshmixer, find the generate supports feature, and press ctrl or shift to drag posts from suspended areas.

3D printers go slow, erratic and do rough results with too much fractal detail, because they make a g-code position for every polygon border.

If the clouds later have colors, optimization by deleting neighbor with same normals (coplanar samples), anti-aliasing, precise normals, you can do 5000 size volumes in hi-def. for the moment that would generate a 5 gb file with 150mn points, and if coplanar samples are erased within MB3D or if someone finds a program that simplifies point clouds by surface quality, we can have 5000 size volumes which generate 15mn points and that are easy to work with.

to export colored mesh from cloud compare, i figure you have to export a scalar field of colors along with the PLY mesh output. A conversion program is probably required to upload to shapeways in x3d color mesh format.

It will be most useful when MB3D renders fully enclosed 3D clouds, for the moment 1.99 is missing points located on XYZ = 0 and rendering all the rest perfectly.

meshlab 2016:
http://www.meshlab.net/
cloud compare:
http://www.danielgm.net/cc/
meshmixer:
http://www.meshmixer.com/

I'll add to this guide in future.