In the next article we are going to take a look at MeshLab. This is a processing tool and 3D editing for unstructured triangular meshes, which is also free and open source for Gnu / Linux, Windows and Mac. With this program we can edit, clean, repair, inspect, render and convert meshes. It is based on the C ++ mesh processing library VCGlib.
The program offers us a simple user interface but with powerful functions. Can process raw data produced by 3D scanning tools / devices and prepare models for 3D printing. It is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0.
MeshLab is developed by the ISTI - CNR research center. MeshLab was initially created as a course assignment at the University of Pisa in late 2005. It is a general purpose system intended for the processing of the typical unstructured 3D models that arise in the 3D scanning process.
General characteristics of MeshLab
- MeshLab provides a powerful tool to move the different meshes to a common reference system, capable of managing a large set of range maps.
- All the display functions MeshLab's can help to graphically present the peculiar characteristics of a 3D model.
- The program can manipulate vertex and face colors using a series of Photoshop-like filters (gamma, saturation, brightness, contrast, levels, smoothing, sharpness).
- Color mapping and texturing. MeshLab contains a pipeline for aligning and projecting color information on a 3D model.
- El transformation process of independent acquisitions, or point clouds on a single-surface triangulated mesh, it can be done with different algorithmic approaches.
- 3D printing: offset, hollow out, close. In addition to being able to export to STL (one of the most common formats for 3D printing), MeshLab can be used to prepare 3D models for printing.
- Cleaning 3D models. MeshLab offers a series of automatic, semi-manual and interactive filters to eliminate those geometric elements that most software and algorithms generally consider 'wrong'.
- We can measure the geometric difference between two 3D models using the Hausdorff distance, which is a common approach in mesh processing.
- Converting and exchanging 3D models. MeshLab can import and export to several different 3D data formats, and to online services such as sketchfab.
- This program will help us simplification, refinement and overlock. A common need when processing a 3D model is to reduce its geometric complexity, creating a geometry with the same shape but with fewer triangles (or points).
- Have been introduced raster layers in MeshLab to allow going beyond the standard 3D model. MeshLab users can also import images and other 2D entities into a project.
- La interactive point-to-point measurement of a 3D model it's really easy in MeshLab. In addition, the automatic filters will return various geometric and topological information about the 3D model.
These are just some of the features of the program. They can consult all of them in detail from the project website.
Install MeshLab on Ubuntu
Ubuntu users We can use MeshLab both as an AppImage file and through its snap pack.
Via AppImage
To download the MeshLab AppImage file we will only have to go to the releases page of the project and save it on our computer. The file downloaded today is called 'MeshLab2020.09-linux.AppImage'. Then we will only have to give it execution permissions and double click on the file to execute it.
We can also open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and download MeshLab as AppImage using wget As follows:
wget https://github.com/cnr-isti-vclab/meshlab/releases/download/Meshlab-2020.09/MeshLab2020.09-linux.AppImage
Once the download is finished, we will have to give execute permission with this other command:
sudo chmod +x MeshLab2020.09-linux.AppImage
Now we can run the program using in the same terminal:
./MeshLab2020.09-linux.AppImage
Through Snap
If we want install this program as snap, we are only going to have to open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and run this command to install MeshLab:
sudo snap install meshlab
Once the installation is finished, we can now open the program by looking for its launcher on our computer:
To start working with this application, users can download sample meshes from project website.
Speaking of meshes, why not do a tutorial on how to make a mesh network with OpenWrt? It is something very interesting and that can be useful to many people and you don't see much on the internet about how to do it.
Excellent article, I personally use Blender 3DIt is going great, I highly recommend it.
Hi, I'm new to the group, thanks for the invitation.