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comsol and .stl geometry format

Posted Sep 9, 2009, 10:34 p.m. EDT 2 Replies

Pasquale Franciosa
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Hi everyone,
I am working a lot with tesselated format files. Often I have to perform numerical analyses starting from this kind of geometry. The problem is, I think, that comsol works bad with this format. I am tested comsol on stl file and I see that:
1. comsol often cannot load the model (parametrization error);
2. comsol correctly import the geometry, but doesn't allow to perfom geometry operations (such as boolean opearations, and so on).
I am solved the problem writing a script in matlab which converts the imported tesselated model into a "n" faces (where each face is a geometry object-face3 function). Anyway, this procedure may be very time expensive for large model.

So, does anyone know a better solution to this problem? If any, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks

Pasquale
2 Replies Last Post Oct 14, 2009, 9:04 p.m. EDT
COMSOL Moderator

Hello Pasquale Franciosa

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Robert Spilker
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Posted: 1 decade ago Oct 14, 2009, 3:46 p.m. EDT
Pasquale:

With apologies, this is a rather late response to your question. We have begun working with medical imaging data (MRI, CT and microCT) to generate some of our 3D biomedical engineering models. We made a number of attempts to work with STL files, and found them to be difficult (you itemize a number of the difficulties), even when produced by excellent imaging software packages like Analyze or Mimics. While there may be some COMSOL m files that can help, we have decided to adopt Geomagic as a way to start with STL and produce iges formatted files. The software models the surface of the volume using NURBS, and the software gives lots of control over the resolution and smoothness. This step (creating the NURB surfaces) makes the resulting file much easier to work with in COMSOL. So, in summary, we use Analyze and Geomagic. Mimics also has some modules that will do the same step.

Regards,

Bob


Hi everyone,
I am working a lot with tesselated format files. Often I have to perform numerical analyses starting from this kind of geometry. The problem is, I think, that comsol works bad with this format. I am tested comsol on stl file and I see that:
1. comsol often cannot load the model (parametrization error);
2. comsol correctly import the geometry, but doesn't allow to perfom geometry operations (such as boolean opearations, and so on).
I am solved the problem writing a script in matlab which converts the imported tesselated model into a "n" faces (where each face is a geometry object-face3 function). Anyway, this procedure may be very time expensive for large model.

So, does anyone know a better solution to this problem? If any, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks

Pasquale


Pasquale: With apologies, this is a rather late response to your question. We have begun working with medical imaging data (MRI, CT and microCT) to generate some of our 3D biomedical engineering models. We made a number of attempts to work with STL files, and found them to be difficult (you itemize a number of the difficulties), even when produced by excellent imaging software packages like Analyze or Mimics. While there may be some COMSOL m files that can help, we have decided to adopt Geomagic as a way to start with STL and produce iges formatted files. The software models the surface of the volume using NURBS, and the software gives lots of control over the resolution and smoothness. This step (creating the NURB surfaces) makes the resulting file much easier to work with in COMSOL. So, in summary, we use Analyze and Geomagic. Mimics also has some modules that will do the same step. Regards, Bob [QUOTE] Hi everyone, I am working a lot with tesselated format files. Often I have to perform numerical analyses starting from this kind of geometry. The problem is, I think, that comsol works bad with this format. I am tested comsol on stl file and I see that: 1. comsol often cannot load the model (parametrization error); 2. comsol correctly import the geometry, but doesn't allow to perfom geometry operations (such as boolean opearations, and so on). I am solved the problem writing a script in matlab which converts the imported tesselated model into a "n" faces (where each face is a geometry object-face3 function). Anyway, this procedure may be very time expensive for large model. So, does anyone know a better solution to this problem? If any, I'd be very grateful. Thanks Pasquale [/QUOTE]
Pasquale Franciosa
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Posted: 1 decade ago Oct 14, 2009, 9:04 p.m. EDT
Hi Bob,
thanks a lot for your reply.
I know geomagic studio and I use it to create CAD (iges, stl) model starting from point clouds digitalized with scanner laser or CMM devices. My aim is to implement an automatic procedure in matlab-comsol, without using other external software. I know also simpleware, which may export in comsol format, but I do not have any details about this.
I hope comsol developers improve the .stl managing in the incoming future.

Thanks

Pasquale
Hi Bob, thanks a lot for your reply. I know geomagic studio and I use it to create CAD (iges, stl) model starting from point clouds digitalized with scanner laser or CMM devices. My aim is to implement an automatic procedure in matlab-comsol, without using other external software. I know also simpleware, which may export in comsol format, but I do not have any details about this. I hope comsol developers improve the .stl managing in the incoming future. Thanks Pasquale

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