3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
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No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
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Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
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No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
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No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
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Do not create links to reddit
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If you see an issue please flag it
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No guns
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No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe/ may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is ![](URL)
Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible
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All I really need is to get the surface data into something other than a "mesh" format. My actual job is working with Catia V5, but my work does not have any of the applicable Catia licenses to directly work with mesh files (such as STLs). If I can get to that point I'm golden. I have plenty of experience working with and creating surfaces.
FreeCad can apparently make a step file from meshes with a few steps, but when I did that with a simple 1 2 3 block scan, the result was about 2.5GB's, and tends to lock up anything that tries to open it. I may look into an open source program to create usable surfaces from point clouds instead of trying to use meshes.
I have access to CATIA but bloody hell that software is complicated. I'll stick with Solidworks even if it's capabilities (at least with surfaces) is lower.
Dealing with converting formats and getting your data where you can manipulate it is needlessly complicated. It isn't a real CAD program, but consider looking at Blender to at least get the mesh into something more usable. Plus it's free.
Good luck dude. If these ever drop into the $200 range I'll definitely pull the trigger on one.