Imported Body Objects - How to clean?

[Morne]

Hi all

I have a bunch of imported objects that come in as Body objects. If I do a straight render, I can see some gaps in the seems. If I set the detail in body object to fine, it does get better but still not perfect.
What I found that brings me close to what I want is going into sew/seem mode and welding the culprit edges (not the vertices, but the edges). This does work even better to an extent.

Is there anything that can automate the process a bit or something else I can do to speed things up a bit?

Adding an edit poly on top just totally messes up the entire object. I tried first importing into Rhino then exporting a mesh to Max, but that results in pretty much the same messed up geometry as just adding an edit poly on top of the body object in max

[Donald2B]

Interested in this as well. We deal with a LOT of projects coming from engineering packages. I've written a couple of scripts to change the body objects settings, but for some reason, they don't "stick". The settings change, but the mesh/viewport mesh doesn't update like it would if I manually enter the values. So I'm probably missing some type of geometry refresh once settings have been changed.

For now, I import with Viewport Body Mesh Quality set to Very Fine, 3D Trimming tolerance set to Tight or Very Tight, Standard - No Welding.
Once imported, turn off backface cull, convert to editable mesh (NOT Editable Poly because Epoly freaks out when trying to triangulate the complex faces), then slap on a Weld Vertex modifier with a low tolerance set to 0.01/0.001 depending on the scale. Collapse down to EMesh and cleanup problem areas as needed.

[Alan Iglesias]

Interested in this as well. We deal with a LOT of projects coming from engineering packages....

If you are importing engineering drawings into Max, then the products from nPower are absolutely indispensable.

http://www.npowersoftware.com/

-Alan

[Donald2B]

Still doesn't fix the underlying problem. For us, it's much faster to cleanup the models in an engineering package than it is to translate them into Max and then deal with the issues. Not to mention all the scripting problems I mentioned above. I've not been able to get an answer from Autodesk or nPower regarding those issues. (Yes, I do have the nPower stuff and it is nice software addition, it's just not quite up to the challenge of these large scale projects we have to deal with on a regular basis.)

[Morne]

For now, I import with Viewport Body Mesh Quality set to Very Fine, 3D Trimming tolerance set to Tight or Very Tight, Standard - No Welding.
Once imported, turn off backface cull, convert to editable mesh (NOT Editable Poly because Epoly freaks out when trying to triangulate the complex faces), then slap on a Weld Vertex modifier with a low tolerance set to 0.01/0.001 depending on the scale. Collapse down to EMesh and cleanup problem areas as needed.

Not sure I follow. This is what I have:

[Garryclarke]

I've had to deal with Body Objects from time to time and they are always a pain. In the end I wrote a simple scripts to change the settings of lots of body objects in one go (attached). For me this was all I needed, I may add a few more features later but for now I don't need much else.

This is how I would work, bear in mind that sometimes the models can have hundreds of body objects.

1. Import the model with lowish settings and the weld switched off (I've found with high settings and weld on that Max would sometimes crash on import)

2. Run the script which opens a box on screen, select some body objects, choose some settings and click Apply. I only have the option to change the display settings as this is what Max uses when it converts to a mesh/poly.

The script enables you to leave some of the settings as they are, for example you can select all the objects and weld them without changing anything else. If I need to do any clean up I convert to a mesh or poly depending on the object.

I've not had to do much with body objects for the last year or so, and I've sure others have better knowledge than me.

The script is a MacroScript and shows up under 'GC_Tools'

http://www.garryclarke.com/scripts/GC_body_tools.zip

[Morne]

Thanks I'll give your script a try.

Just another thing, on import, I don't get an option to set any options during import, when I select the file it just starts importing and translating immediately and then get the various body objects.

[Donald2B]

Not sure I follow. This is what I have:

Ah, sorry. I was referring to the import options. I almost always try to use SAT files for import, they just seem to be the best option. For the parts that don't import well as SAT, I try STP or IGES files instead. Since I am coming out of an engineering package I can choose any file type I want to use. You don't get any options with STP files or PRT files.

I try to break out my imports into clumps or logical layers of the original file, so it's easier to deal with in Max. That way my imports are too crazy big. A typical project for me is around the 40,000 body objects, and usually very complex. So the layer breakdown will help with converting to EMesh and welding. I no longer render body objects due to the fact that when I render them in animation, they can "flicker" or change mesh quality when rendered to the render farm. Supposedly, this is due to the objects starting off screen and out of the camera's view.

Anyways, here are the settings I was talking about.


@Garryclarke: I will try out your script on Monday. I have another big project kicking off and will be importing a LOT of engineering data. It will be interesting to see how your script differs from the ones I have written. Thanks!

[Morne]

In my case its STP files so no import options

[Donald2B]

Yeah...we moved away from STP files for that very reason. I still wish that Max could handle Body objects MUCH better than it's current iteration!

The best workflow we had was XRefing in the major components in as body objects set for viewport very low quality. Was easier to previz and animate. Only problem was the geo flickering like I mentioned before. It's too bad, because that is the fastest way for us to work and have multiple people working on the various parts and pieces independently. Then setup a material master file and xref the materials across all the files. Really quick turnaround. Oh well, here's hoping things get better in the next release.

[thablanch]

I'll first paste a link where we had a similar discussion,

http://forums.chaosgroup.com/showthr...highlight=step

And the manual How To

Our workflow consist of:
Setting presets for required quality - playing around with the mesh quality options
In body objects - welding category
In welding - click split edges
click weld now
Add an edit mesh modifier - collapse ( works better that convert to mesh from right click quad menu, don't know why)


You got a really clean mesh..

As mentioned, works better with mesh than poly, at least for our workflow..

We are dealing with dozen of step files each day, and we had an external solution (Npower and others) and we changed our workflow for a 100% 3dsMax, as it was faster and easier for us.
Also, the 3dsMax body object module is an Npower implementation, so kind of works in the same way.. (and not totally scriptable unfortunateley, a few workarounds are needed to automate the process)

However, you are always dependent, whatever is the solution you use, of how good the provided file is, and sometime the step file is not the problem, it is the file provider..

[Syclone1]

This has been an awesome thread, I work for an oil field engineering company and they almost exclusively use Solidworks which has been a huge PITA for me to import assemblies in to max. But after reading about Troy using SAT files and trying it this morning they work surprisingly well. Up to now I was using either Okino's or NPower's importers for Solidworks and even that is hit and miss as some stuff comes in great on one and not the other and sometimes the opposite.

**EDIT** For the heck of it I tried a previous model that was impossible before to get in to max through either Okino or nPower and just tried going from Solidworks to SAT to max and it imported perfectly!! took about an hour with a 350mb SAT file but the thing is it WORKED!! IOU guys a beer!

[Donald2B]

This has been an awesome thread, I work for an oil field engineering company and they almost exclusively use Solidworks which has been a huge PITA for me to import assemblies in to max. But after reading about Troy using SAT files and trying it this morning they work surprisingly well. Up to now I was using either Okino's or NPower's importers for Solidworks and even that is hit and miss as some stuff comes in great on one and not the other and sometimes the opposite.

Yeah, it can be hit or miss! Solidworks and NX files are the ones we usually cringe at the most due to the sheer number of files that are included and whether or not they were exported properly in the first place.

@thablanch: Thanks for the great link! I don't know how I missed that thread. I have had mixed results with the welding of split edges, but that may have been due to the poor nature of the export from the client. Lots of great info for everyone!

[Garryclarke]

Wierdly I've just been given a 100mg iges file. First time in ages.

4900 objects - brilliant, brings my machine to an almost dead stop

All my script does is cycle through all the selected objects and changes settings in the modify panel. If you have a look at the script it would be easy to change it to whatever your prefered settings were.

- Garry

[Alan Iglesias]

Yes, I do have the nPower stuff and it is nice software addition, it's just not quite up to the challenge of these large scale projects we have to deal with on a regular basis.

I just spoke to nPower Software President Dave Gill (858-592-8866) and they would love to work with you regarding these issues. Please give him a call so that if the nPower software you are using has to be improved somehow, you both can work together to make it happen!

Kindest regards,

-Alan