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roozternyc
07-09-2008, 02:48 PM
Recently at my company we have been doing many car commercials, and for all of these spots we have recieved cad data from the car manufacturers.

To make these cars useable we have been using brute force clean-up. basically just hand quadrangulating all of the pieces. This method is effective but very time consuming. I was wondering if anyone knew of a more friendly/quicker workflow to clean-up these models.

Thanks,

Adam
Santucci
07-10-2008, 07:34 PM
Dude, I worked for an engineering firm for 4 years and I never found an easy way to fix those models. In fact, totally remaking the CAD/ProE models was the fastest way I found. Not only are those models a disaster but they're so high poly it's a nightmare. If it's possible, I suggest rebuilding them by using the broken models as a templet of sorts.
gnomadix
07-11-2008, 08:49 AM
Hi Adam

If you are getting hi density poly meshes (STL, dxf etc) you have a couple of options
in your bog standard 3d program ie Maya has some cleanup options for duplicate sufaces, non-manifold geo, holes etc as does Rhino also has poly mesh cleanup commands.

If the problem goes beyond that which I'm sure it does Materialise Magics has an amazing cleanup and repair options for bad normals, shells, holes, bad edges. Only one problem:
it will tesselate the mesh to triangles and I'm not sure if there is quad option.

Other options are to use Zbrush retopologise options and reduce it to a simple clean mesh
you rebuild the mesh flow and add back detail in zbrush, Maya etc but I think this isn't what you want for car parts (maybe for the more organic surfaces) so give Magics a shot

If you are getting Nurbs/iges/STEP files could you not rebuild the mesh from parametric data
anyway?

Good luck
Simon
Santucci
07-11-2008, 04:59 PM
I can't speak for Materialise Magics as I had to keep to using only Maya. Same for ZBrush. If they work, awesome. :thumbsup:

Without plugins, I was near pulling my hair out at the bizarre things the CAD models did when turned to polys. I tried every combiniation of clean up functions in maya and yeah, sometimes I just rebuilt things.
Malkalypse
07-11-2008, 07:11 PM
Not sure what you mean when you say "by hand", but I have found that the PolyBoost plugin for 3DS Max is an essential tool for my workflow. Similarly, TopoGun looks like quite a useful program, thought it is still in beta.
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