Data samples and .ply

interesting site with a sample of a scanned person. few different formats. the .iges appears not to be any good. might be of interest to some of you.

http://www.hec.afrl.af.mil/HECP/Card1b.shtml#caesarsamples

the .ply format shows up alot for this scanned stuff... medical data scans (like mousey brains - oh joy), engineering analysis, etc. not seeing any good tools supporting the format. can anyone shed some like on reliabel, free convertors? save me the time of writing one. thanks in advance.

A lot of cool infos on that page, esp. for those of you who need realistic sources for military stuff other than the usual fireguns and camoflages. EG. this:
http://www.hec.afrl.af.mil/HECI/fdi.shtml

Difficult question.IGES(stl is much better) is very bad supported by free tools.So i got curious and browsed a little bit. Results :


This thing is demo software, but just limited in no more of 320 elements.Dunno what that means, but if is what i think, ur single piece model scan should open and convert...
http://www.durst.de/english/dowload_testsoftware.html

Free one. A converter , gpl, to convert IGES to *ac of ac3d comercial modeller. bellow of this link, to free modellers that open ac3d format. (ms dos tool, I think.Should be easy.)
http://www.on-the-web.ch/3dc/

this one could serve you convert the ac3d format to something much more common...
It supports a load of formats, maybe even iges, but if not, if at least it has ac3d import, u could import the files already converted from iges to ac3d in 3dc, above.
http://k3d.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/wiki?Features

This one also opens ac3d format. Export to common formats.
http://prettypoly.sourceforge.net/index.php3?section=win_binary

Beware what 3dc opens are Varicad IGES, dunno if that's compliant with ur iges, but could be.

Minos.freeware. Seems that opens iges files, and can save to vrml.There's a LOAD of tools and ways to convert a vrml.Ask if u don't know any....(I've read somewhere ir not only output, but also imports IGES...)

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/rleboite/caps.htm

ooops

u meant ply, not iges.Well, better luck, much more tools :

info bout th eformat

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/geomformats/ply/
http://www.programmersheaven.com/zone10/cat454/35124.htm

free ply to vrml97 (way standard) converter.I think u need just to compile it with any c++ compiler.
http://www.hlrs.de/people/aumueller/ply2vrml97/

free viewer of ply and other formats, open source :
"A fast viewer for 3D meshes. Supports 3DS, OBJ, MD2, SMD, TIN, STL and PLY for the mesh files, and most common image formats for texturing (JPG, TGA, BMP, CEL, PNG...). Source available at the same link."
http://glscene.sourceforge.net/download.htm

U could use blender to make the conversion.Import and export plugin available. beware, while it could work with -th ones I have now- latest 2.35 and python 2.34, I'd recomend just downloading what it says, blender 2.32 and python 2.2.This way u ensure it.
http://people.cs.uct.ac.za/~bmerry/msc/downloads.html
It has even uv mapping support!

ply loading code for c++ coders, I think...
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/nickamy/code.htm

more converters for Ply...
ftp://ftp.cyberware.com/pub/converters/

phew, that one was tough...

why the heck don't people use just OBj... ;)

ps: good luck editing enormous Pc killing 3d scans.... ;)


Oh, and...
comercial tool supporting it and a whole load more :
http://web.axelero.hu/karpo/
I still prefer the idea of micromouse.ca converter and 3d exploration (there's an usable shareware version of it) but yep, that karpo one supports way more formats. (well probably not as much as deep exploration newer...but that's another type of price...)

and BTW, other formats that use to be used by same professional field people, are inventor *.iv , and stl, both much more supported, if I remember now, 3d exploration, accutrans, openfx.org, several others do suport em. Just in case u find one in those.

thanks but have already found most of those sites.

"astronomy.swin.edu.au" is code.
"programmersheaven.com" is ply format info.

ply to vrml97 converter goes to format i can't open in Maya. can't open in my CAD app either. or MS3D (if it could even handle the tri count). lot of exporters for VRML97. not many importers.

"sourceforge.net/download.htm" - free viewer. not convertor.

"U could use blender to make the conversion" - except i'm asking to "save me the time of writing one." this was really just to look at those files. not even really use them. except maybe if a good convertor was available...

"ply loading code for c++ coders, I think..." - on other sites too.

"more converters for Ply... ftp://ftp.cyberware.com/pub/converters" - saw only a ply viewer.

i've also looked at converting inventor (.iv) files. just as bad finding convertors. only one i found is crap and site admits it has problems. lots of apps can export. not many can import. the Cornell Box is provided as an .iv file. changed header and imported parts of it into CAD for rebuild. BUT... i didn't check openfx and will look into that one. don't need it now, but good to know.

openfx website has no file format listing. dont want to be loading more apps that i'll never use. anyone already have it loaded and can verify it'll load one of these .ply or .iv models and kick out something common like a .3ds or .obj?

last i checked accutrans and 3d exploration weren't free.

hmm..

many stuff u didn't get too deep there, but I see, u actually have nto a great interest on this ;)

Ok...in that ftp yep there where converters...

tools that open vrml, there are. http://www.europa.com/~keithr/crossroads/

accutrans is not free...is non limited, no nag shareware. 3d Exploration 1.5(not the newer, Deep) is shareware or an strange beta, and can be found in this htm page, digging a bit :
http://www.dsmith.gmaxsupport.com/Essential_Tools.htm

It only displays a remind me-later pair of buttons u click every start. All gmax comunity is using it since long time.

It opens iv and stl, but not iges or ply.

there are scans in dxf format , of course, non uv mapped. There are others in obj.U only gotta dig a bit.

I think I found some other in weird simple formats like raw, etc.

i was near to buy once a 3d scanner, and I had to find a tool to handle point cloud data: those files where just the coords that the magnetic thing was dumping in a file...

There was a tool to handle those file: surely it open all those formats. Couldn't even remember the name, and I sure have it in some cd, but it'd take maybe days to find it among my cds.It was free, dedicated for point clouds data (3d scans)

Open fx loads STL (often used for big cad models, I think) , dxf (often, very often used for raw 3d scan with surface/uv map info, as dxf cant handle that) , 3ds (no more than 65k tris, so no valid) and its native.

exports dxf , stl, 3ds, vrml.

btw, that site offers it in stl and OBJ, and there are loads of tools that open an obj.

But even with obj, not all are ideal. Ie: Metasequoia is probably the best to handle large geometries. Blender too.Probably not as much as metasequoia, which is a free modeller, indeed. that can export to cob, x , dxf. Remember x has a 65k tris, too. Cob I dunno, but perhaps is higher. DXF is really high, seen several scans in dxf. OBJ I'd think is unlimited.At least, I tested with 260k tris, if I remeber well. And is used for normal maps, so I'd bet it supports whatever the count.Indeed, is a bit more than an ordered coords list.

3d exploration 1.5 accutrans are no nagged, no time limited shareware. i didn't know if u just were looking for a casual use of them.

BTW, I don't actually need them to acces every format ouit there, but i spend in seeking tools more time than would have sense.

d_cnvrt.exe in that ftp place, if I read well, is a ply converter.DOS command line, and u need to boot with an old dos start disk.

yep, one was about code, as u said u could be about to write one, I thought just compile one would be easier.

""U could use blender to make the conversion" - except i'm asking to "save me the time of writing one." this was really just to look at those files. not even really use them. except maybe if a good convertor was available... "

Hmm...the ply plugin for import export is already done. U don't need to write anything. I don't understand you.

to use anything in Maya u need to use any of the several free converters or free modellers out there that convert an vrml or whatever the format to OBJ.

Or grab one of those OBJs directly.

I have seen (and could convert) scans and in way weirder formats loads of times.It's perfectly possible.

3d exploration exports and imports a load of formats.
including stl and iv.

I haven't tested most of what i say here, I've only done crazy lots of tasks similar to all these.

IMHO writing a converter is rather much more work than just making ur workflow with some of these freebies.

good luck

indeed..

that what u did call a viewer...

is the key.

hehe

iplyview-1.exe

yep, it looks like is only a viewer, but go to the installation folder.

there are ALL kind of ply to whatever converters.

made a test. Not only, works, it works GREAT. Seems the traslation of a 200k ploygons model is done in seconds, while ultimate unwrap took a lot more to load a 6 mb OBJ output.

Extremely good, o course, as is a 3d scan.

But heh, go edit it...not only u need a load of 3d knoledge (so much that if u have it u'd better doing the models ur own..) it also is so painful for hardware. Also, at the end, there's few types, as there's very limited variety os scans made...

The clever way to scan is microscribe scanner, one that i felt in love with. It scans point per point...of those u paint in a lattice, kindda silo topology brush. Of course u can use instead silo aproach. QUite good. Is indeed what only attracts me more in silo than wings.

Well, install that "viewer" and go to the folder "headus".Make a txt file, rename it to whatever .bat and edit it putting for example ply2obj whateverthemodelply whateverthemodel.obj

if the model u copied just there, u'll be done.

if the install asked u for a password, u don't have the one I got from certain ftp site, which may happen. if so, and interested, I can upload to sharemation.

well, ok.

as I say, do a *.bat in the /headus folder at program files folder. the bat only gotta be having something like this... (first copy the ply file into headus folder):

ply2obj Armadillo.ply Armadillo.obj

Oh, don't use Ultimate Unwrap..besides is rather slow for such crazy meshes, as I supposed Metasequoia absolutely rocks at it. Quick, almost no load time. And displayin with no glitches (several seen in uu, yet dunno why) .I traslated as OBJ.




u see, in that folder u have a load of possible converters.


I have done this conversion in seconds.

Oh, metasequoia.At least you need to install the ply thing, and metasequoia, or I'm afraid u'll have problems.

Metasequoia LE will allow u to export as dxf -x should not as is 65k tris limit- maybe also cob. DXF does not retain uv coords or smoothing.Smoothing is not important.

I did this test in metasequoia not le, as the shareware is th one that gets updated, is a bit better, and Ultimate opens the only format it exports, native mqo. And curiously, no word mentioned on the comercial use of the shareware...while yes on the LE.

meta's site
http://www21.ocn.ne.jp/~mizno/main_e.html

was curious stuff to guess
Bye

http://www.sharemation.com/troll/iplyview-1.exe

uploaded the one which I found with no needed password, as is just a free tool. Some scanner companies put it a password...

but my bandwith there is very often wasted...so, u try at different moments, to see if ur lucky..

first off, sorry. i misread what you wrote about the Blender plugin. will have to give it a look. bummer have to load older version.

***

for the sake of closure people should probably forget the IGES files on that site. i think they're bad. they choke my CAD; open in Maya... but without surface data. tried earlier in the week.

***

wrt .ply files:

- Crossroads does not read VRML2/VRML97. a ply-to-vrml97 doesn't help. i've seen VRML1 to VRML2 convertors, but not other way. "lot of exporters for VRML97. not many importers."

- accutrans doesn't support .ply or .iv formats. don't need dxf. Maya and CAD support that. don't need .stl or .obj either. my apps can read those too.

- i'm guessing 3D Explorer is actually 3D Exploration. took me a while on that page to figure that out. damn. no wonder i could never find it and could only find the paid version. thanks for that. at least i can get that Cornell Box .iv file to open cleanly. but still no .ply support. bummer.

- "there are scans in dxf format , of course, non uv mapped. There are others in obj.U only gotta dig a bit". obj format opens fine. full body person was only about 250k tri's tho. too low for good rez actually. issue is .ply files. also, is subject 82, available in other formats? didn't dig that far. zip only has .ply format.

- so OpenFX doesn't open either .ply or .iv. all i needed to know. thanks.

- "convert an vrml or whatever the format to OBJ." again, it's the flavor of VRML. of course if there was no direct .ply convertor then the next step would be to find a VRML2 to VRML convertor. one thing at a time.

-

i don't install stuff that doesn't look useful. too much crap on the machine is bad. but glad you install stuff so easily! will take a look at those hidden convertors. that could be an excellent and rare find.

nice hunting job. now if we can only get you to shorten/organize your posts. those are tough. :)

took me a while to realize this is the same thing i grabbed last week! i thought the ply.zip file was supposed to have the convertors. the viewer just sat in my work folder when i figured only customers had access to conversion tools! couldn't have loaded that one anyway - it's the "login" version.

didn't use the one you uploaded tho. figured you found something somewhere (either on P2P or on their site). for anyone interested there are links on the website to both login and no login versions. who knows why. but here are the two "no login" versions:

ftp.cyberware.com/dropbox/plyview

here's a couple conversions i did with the "older" iplyview. big iges file. over 200mb. the obj file tri's are shown there too (375,282) much easier to handle.

I am afraid I have never been organized for more important things in my life, hehe, so rarely I'll be for posting in a forum ;) Is "artistic posting".

you.[/quote]

first off, sorry. i misread what you wrote about the Blender plugin. will have to give it a look. bummer have to load older version.[/quote]

I expected that as a possibility.Ok, I found that one besides a comment from a user reporting to have checked how well it worked. I forgot yesterday to just try it with the very recent Blender 2.35, maybe it works. Remember that Blender has a polygon reducer, decimator, and subdividing options, as well as a kind of relax geometry and others that can come useful polishing the initially ugly scans. Metasequoia has the reducer, but is not very good. But Meta opens them so well...



True, but also I had several vrml tools that are quite hard to find in the net. Yes, so then, is hard to find them, true. There's an vrml2 import plugin for Ultimate Unwrap, but as I said, something weird happens with these models and UU. Maybe is just a graphic glitch in the 3d viewer, and data is ok.(happens for example with x animations)



Nope. I posted it as it has a load of editing commands and is unique in the feature of 3d batch conversion-editing.Often, I put links to things I know will become convenient at some point of the proccess (while can be done with other tools) even if it's not exactly what is asked for.



Ok. But I have found that...even having 5 ways to open same format, only one or 2 tools does the task 100% correctly. Being at game companies learnt the more tools, the safer...but yep, I am a person who uses to clutter is OS and hd, but also i know how to cleam my registry, and remove unused dlls safely ;)



Yep. Again, I omit info when I think the person reading will guess the stuff..seems you finally guessed it was there, as I said "dig" that page...because is 3d exploration 1.5 the thing to download in that page, not the today's deep Exploration. Sorry if I wasn't totally explicit, I was writting very quick and knowing the reader had a good brain ;)



Some reasons maybe for that.probably a ply file is cleverer designed for huge data. Or dxf, even.maybe as OBJ is ascii, the processing is slower for 3d tools. maybe there's a limit I don't know in OBJ, but I think I have seen exports of millions of tris, if I remember well, in obj.



I know I shouldn't ask. But fills me of curiosity why a game programmer is so interested in such hi res stuff...
Displacement maps or normals maps would be my bet, but I suspect your interest is different...That unless your planning to use them in your games in some rendered form...
Or doing a ..medical app...




What I meant is in general, in internet, specially in college's ftps, but also other places, samples of many other 3d scanners, etc, there are also 3d scans repositories...I guess if I'd do one of my "loong searches" I'd come up with a lot. But as usual in my game jobs experience or even just graphic design, I don't find exactly what I look for and gotta end up modelling my self...Not speaking of scan accuracy, heh. BTW, a scan needs a lot of retouch, unless ur use admits using it as raw as it comes.(with all the bumps and weirdy things, like thathead u put shows..Besides, u'll notices how it never gets well into sharp corners...Microscribe I say is my fav, you can do sharp stuff, with little points (it trnaslates to nurbs!via max/maya plugin..) and is also cheaper, and can scan huger models as is a machanical arm that serves u pointing in -painted if u prefer- virtual wires painted in the original model.(topology brush in real life ;) ))

I was near to buy one of those 3d scanners(not microscribe, cheap but not enough for my pocket)...Picza or something like that...where like 2k $...but only scanning little 3 or 4 inches models, and during long hours. And also, with lots of limits. Polhemus iso tracker based in a magnetic field, there was the more expensive laser gun scanners, the actual professional thing by them (really expensive) , the wonderful microscribe "cheap" thing (a bit more expensive than Max, I think, then) , and those based on photogrammetry, rotating cameras that build a model uv mapped and textured, already, hehe. Quite expensive.
I think best for most uses is Microscribe aproach.
But today surely there are new techniques, and new prices...



Ultimate unwrap, if you install a plugin -a link to the user that made it is in his site- can import vrml2 , and I think can export as vrml1. Also, Blender, with the plugin of the format wished (today it open almost every format out there, but u need to dig -again- as is usally about a python script of certain user interested in teh format.usually works perfect. ) also exports to vrml1. BTW, it natively imports stl. I know , u don't need it.



It totally is, is the solution if you're worring about ply files.. ;)



As I said, I just clean my registry from time to time...worked also as a pc tech support. I'm no genius in that area, but I can keep my pc with good performance and zero problems even installing lots of stuff, did so allways ;) There are tools to help the cleaning, but I tend to do a lot of cleaning manually. Dunno, I don't notice a serious slow down, not even in my ut2k3 game, or editing huge mesh files, or doing huge 2d works...Not installing certain stuff would be having less functionality in my computer. Anyway, I don't install everything. Just stuff I think is useful.And use to kill most traces of it once not needed.



haha.Sorry. Just I can't avoid that.



No, not p2p.Neither illegal...all fine stuff, legal, found in public ftp of a college. Can't remember the url (and was one of those long urls) Simply, seems there are 3d scanner companies that try to make free tools like an addon in purchase, or just don't want everybody have access to that.If I found in public, non hidden folders of a college, it was WAY visble, and linked from several easy-to-find in google htms... So, I guess is free.



Another possibility is the non free one has a better viewer...go guess.




I suppose you have a good computer, then ;)



As you see, a 3d scan "as is" comes with lots of weird bumps, produced by the scanning process. I guess tools like the ones I mentioned in blender could come handy.

But probably Maya have very good relax, reduce and optimize tools. I gotta check in my XSI.

Once again, sorry my long posts.

But way many times, at Blitzcoder (and a hundred other older forums) ppl know after such a long random chat I give useful info, hehe.

that plugin hasn't been updated in over a year. and if it doesn't work well, then why bother? UU is not free ($40) and doesn't support VRML1/2 import by itself.



"one thing at a time."



agree. and i have plenty of good tools. Maya and Pro/Engineer are just two. fewer the better imo.



it took 4 or 5 complete reads before i realized that was Exploration. could have used it a few years ago.



1) my job is designing real products. hi-rez data for reference is good to have (well, maybe i need to limit my samples). esp of humans. another designer asked if i could help with conversion. thats the reason it's not a big issue to me. but it is of some professional interest. and worth doing anyways.

2) i've been waiting for hi-rez to enter game worlds. normalmapping now. higher polycounts later. it's all getting more real. not less. so my day job will intersect with game hobby pretty soon. just getting prepared :)



i've worked with point clouds in product design (i can usually just create the virtual model by looking at the sculpted and not even bother with the cloud). spent some time at Little Tikes. long time ago. they had a huge version of Microscribe. big enough to scan outdoor playset parts. but they didn't use it that much actually. maybe now they use it more. i should ask. better yet, i could ask Fisher-Price (good freelance-contact opportunity)



don't mistake my interest for "worry". i won't be using these .ply files in the near future. maybe eventually. but i will tell that designer how to convert now.



nothing to do with registry. or pc slowdown. just a personal organization thing. (next goal is to stop downloading reference images off the net)



i know. or i wouldn't have loaded it.



thought of that. but filesize is same. my theory is the convertor-viewer used to be customer-only. the CAESAR site links to login version (iirc). but Cyberware changed their policy and made it public. link to non-login is on their site. can download straight. but the link goes to one version of non-login viewer. there are two in that ftp folder. i loaded both. more recent upload is installed now.



not especially. Pro/E handles the data beautifully.



like i said, i've worked with this data before. so i expect this. guess i'm thinking of another designer who said they had bought the dataset (US $4500 fyi) to design some medical equipment. i'd asked and he said the .ply data was better. i expected more. but he also said they extracted curves. so they must be converting to iges and pulling/rebuilding important curves in CAD. probably just around the head. don't think he knows. probably a CAD engineer who did the work and gave him the clean results.

anyway. looks like we have some good reference data. over time i will see if i can make something useful from this stuff.

thanks for the help Bob.

I see...You gotta have a nice job :) (not ironical)

The ugly side of all this in games, is each time is needed more and more hours and people to make a game that get to be with today standards....

I also would have preferred from start if all this low-med pol stuff would have not been used(and needed to learn). I was previously more a hi res guy. (actually, I allways did "draw in hi res" ;)) It did cost me a lot to learn al that..
Now games seems are using normal maps.Not yet very convinced, I prefer displacement mapping, imho quite more near the final thing: hi res. I think some technology already available for games in this...

Normal maps have too much aspects that make it yet to be a little of a fake.(ugly seams, low polygon silohuette contours are visible, etc) I think displacement mapping done inside 3d cards -I think by dx9.x- avoid this. But not too sure.

[ er..I didn't get confused about just an interest and a worry.I just have bad handling of english language ;) ]

Glad to help, c5ven. :)