It does what it says on the box for me....

Hi Mogal

What build of ViaCAD is instantly crashing you? When you import the STL file or use a specific tool?

Tim

It's a challenging one. I'll make you a quick video how to convert it into a solid...

Tim

Very interesting Tim,

Your STL original file from Thingiverse was in which kind of mesh -Quad ??

Thanks Murray, but now I cannot understand !! I supposed that the tools of the PowerPack can only convert quad mesh into a solid !!

Thanks Tim, now I understand ! and I did some examples from thingiverse.... with success !! But with problematic geometry, is difficult to find the solution...Like the "MinecraftLegoSword".

What's the advantage of using the Power Pack tools over, say, Netfabb, which will correct STLs in basically one operation?

>>Tim - Do you mean that we have no solution for the Sword.

You need to manually remove those inner non-manifold facets. I'll need to examine netfab further how they are automatically removing those faces.

Quick video converting sword into a solid with powerpack pro. I'm rather sloppy with the delete causing some extra steps.

http://www.csi-concepts.com/Demo/videos/minecraftSword.mp4

Tim

Edited by user Tuesday, April 26, 2016 11:42:53 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Netfabb's great for rapid prototyping operations, but it isn't designed to make .stls suitable for editing in CAD. PowerPack is a suite of repair AND reverse engineering utilities, its range is beyond the repair of .stls. As well as the repair and analysis functions for .stls, conversion to analytic and nurbs surfaces is like a 3D version of the raster-to-vector apps that trace CAD drawings over pictures. .stl was designed to be a format for rapid prototyping machines, so an "*.stl" is as likely to be a sculpture of a fairy princess riding a winged unicorn (or Yoda...) as it is to be a tool component or a consumer product. Sculptures like that have a lot more arbitrary data than the average CAD model, and if the purpose of getting it into CAD is just to repair it for printing, you might as well use Netfabb, but the main advantage of being able to format that sort of data is to make it usable for modification. A freeform sculpture, which probably wasn't sculpted in CAD, might as well be modified in something other than CAD (but then, the subsequent .stl is just as likely to need repair for printing...). But if the arbitrary data is from a 3D scan to make an object producible or developable, it typically needs to be refined, ordered and made coherent. That's what PowerPack is great for.

Edited by user Tuesday, April 26, 2016 4:01:52 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Tim, I reproduced with success your sword example !! But can we have more resolution for the handle with some values in the Mesh to Analytic dialog window ??

Thanks!