meshing

Tools and Data for Solid Modeling


A 3D model described by its 2D boundary a model from The Princeton Shape Benchmark	A skeleton described by 3D tetrahedral mesh by Barbara Cutler	A rendered model of a 3D object by Henon using wings3D	A tetrahedral terrain model from Los Alamos National Laboratory

Data sets

The Princeton Shape retrieval and Analysis Group has a depository of 3D models at http://shape.cs.princeton.edu/benchmark/

The Aim@Shape Shape Repository has a collection of 3D models at http://shapes.aim-at-shape.net/

The Stanford 3D scanning repository provides a cllection of 3D range data at http://graphics.stanford.edu/data/3Dscanrep/

Softwares

Solid modelers---for creating 3D models through 2D boundary representations

wings3D is a free, easy-to-use multi-platform software. The underlying representation is the winged-edge data structure. The wings3D software and its tutorials can be downloaded at http://www.wings3d.com/

blender is a free, complex multi-platform software. It can be downloaded at http://www.blender.org/ with user manual available online.

brl-cad is a free and easy-to-use unix-based software using the constructive solid geometry approach. It can be downloaded at http://www.brlcad.org/

tetgen is a free small tool for generating tetrahedral mesh. It is written in C++. A small visualization tool tetview is also available for viewing the output of tetgen. Source code of tetgen and binary executable of tetview can be dowmloaded at http://tetgen.berlios.de/

The Aim@Shape depository provides a wide collection of tools for creating and manipulating 2D and 3D shapes. A catagory is available at http://www-sop.inria.fr/aim-at-shape/

Model viewers---for viewing 2D and 3D models

Many solid modelers can view solid models in their designated formats

gmv is a unix-based general mesh viewer for 3D and 2D cell complexes. Window users need a unix simulator. The binary executable and user manual is available at http://laws.lanl.gov/XCM/gmv/GMVHome.html

Format converter---for converting among various file formats

ivcon is a free tool written in C++ for converting a variety of 3D graphic file formats. Source code is available at http://www.csit.fsu.edu/~burkardt/g_src/ivcon/ivcon.html

Geometric computation tools

The Computational Geometry Algorithms Library provides a wide collection of free tools, written in C++, for geometric computation. Source code is available at http://www.cgal.org/

Numerical computation tools

lapack is a linear algebra package written in fortran. clapack is its fortran-to-C version. lapack is available at http://www.netlib.org/lapack/ and clapack is available at http://www.netlib.org/clapack/

Comparison of modelers

If you do not know what to use, it may help starting with a survey on mesh generators at http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/sowen/softsurv.html

written on 16 November 2005 for course CMSC741 Geometric and Solid Modeling (Fall 2005)