"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> Hey - very cool.
> Glad you're having fun with all of that.
>
> I've used Slicer in the past for 3D printing - but I think what you've
> also done is come up with a (long-sought after) way to turn a complex
> object into a mesh.

How long and painful was your learning curve with that app? When I first fired
it up on my computer, I thought "Holy s**t, how am I ever gonna understand this
thing?" The various online video tutorials I've studied were a godsend-- but I
still haven't come across one that clearly explains how to take image 'stacks'
and output an .stl file from them; I had to muck around on my own to discover
that little set of operations (which were not at all obvious, *groan*). The
online manual wasn't very helpful.
>
> If we could (semi-)automate the whole process, then we could model something
> using CSG, then using animation - slice it up,  and send it through the
> stacking-meshing pipeline, and then save the mesh for future use.   Doesn't
> matter how slow it is, since the idea would be to have the object quickly
> renderable in future scenes.

Right. Once '3D slicer' creates the model as .stl, it could be brought into
Poseray (and/or Meshlab?) -- I assume-- to convert it into a mesh file that's
usable for importing back into POV-ray, if needed.

One neat thing about my current process is that a complex model would probably
need supports placed here and there, for the 3D-printing step. Those supports
could actually be designed into the model in POV-ray (temporarily) which then
show up in the initial .png 'slices' just like the model itself, and become part
of the created .stl file ready for printing. To me, that seems a better way of
doing it than relying on the final 'slicer' software (Cura et al) to figure out
where the clunky supports should go. I haven't tried the idea yet, though; I'm
still in the early stages of 'discovery' ;-)

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