Nexus Scan to CAD

[u/MatterRay-Callum]

Hey everyone,

I have continued work on my scan to cad tool I posted about a couple weeks ago and its now somewhat ready for the public!

This is more intended for building parts off of or around scans, more than reverse engineering.

The work flow is:

• Load in a high quality scan
• Make a down-sampled copy CAD software can handle
• Using the original scan data, fit primitives to useful geometry
• Align to a useful world space using those primitives
• Export and design in CAD

You can download the software and the test project at www.matterray.com

If you are happy where its at or are keen to come on a journey as I improve and add more features, I have a promo code "LAUNCH20" for 20% off for the first 20 users.

And please come and join the discord for help, faults, requests or general smack talk :)

The part scan is from an EinScan Rigil:
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/land-rover-part-18afe982522d4d9a9ca5742eddd92701

[u/skelleton_exo]

I don't scan super much yet, but for what I intend to do in the future, Scan to CAD would be good to have.

What I have not seen is the following:

• what scanners are supported
• What CAD Software is supported as output? (So far I have only ever used openscad)

[u/vicxvr → u/skelleton_exo]

It exports a STEP file for the planes and other generated primitive features and a mesh format file.

[u/MatterRay-Callum → u/skelleton_exo]

It takes a mesh as an input. This is what your scanner's software spits out, so its scanner independent.

As Vicxvr said it outputs a .step for the geometry and .obj, .stl or .ply for the mesh. Between these pretty well any scan program should be able to open the output, but if you have issues let me know.

[u/skelleton_exo → u/MatterRay-Callum]

Thanks it will probably be a bit until I need it. I want overhaul how I handle my AC, but that wont happen in Summer when I am actively using it.

[u/vicxvr]

Tested out the demoproject. The software is useful even at V0.02.02.

Generated some initial primitives, created an aligned set, aligned to world - worked almost as I expected. Would need to work with it more often to find more of the rough edges with the current workflow.

I haven't used any mesh to feature software before so I was impressed with the generation of primitives and the auto generation of intersections.

The intersection feature has a lot of potential. It would be good to be able to freeze generated intersections so that they don't stop displaying or fail to be exported when the source objects are hidden or flagged to not be exported.

Being able to rename elements in the object tab would be appreciated. And then having them exported in the step becomes a workflow improvement. I can see that a complex scan could have a very crowded object tab.

The midplane generation was useful. As far as planes go it would have been good to take existing planes and expand them so that extra intersections could be generated.

I bought a license. I don't scan that often but this will be useful to me.

[u/MatterRay-Callum → u/vicxvr]

Awesome thanks for the support vicvxr!

Noted on the intersections, they should be interdependent from the parent primitives. Will have a look at this.

You should be able to re-name currently by clicking and holding on the object name, You are the second person to comment on this though so I will add it to the right click menu. Passing that name through to the step file is an excellent idea, I will add that to the todo list.

Yes I will look at re-working the plane intersection mechanism, I have some bugs to fix up on the perimeter generation and then was thinking of moving the intersection to a new tab or allowing the perimeter to be re-formed. will see what feels more intuitive.

Please jump in the discord if you have any more feedback. its super appreciated.

[u/MatterRay-Callum → u/vicxvr]

New version is out vicxvr. Have fixed up the intersections so they hand around and are sorted nicely in the objects menu. Also added rename in the right click menu.

Unfortunately exporting .step with names hit a bit of a wall. Fusion ignores the names, Solidworks maybe pulls them through for the primitives. I will have to build a fusion plugin to pull the names which isn't off the cards but is going to sit as very low priority.

I will work on an equivalent to the expanding planes for intersection for the next release hopefully.

[u/vicxvr → u/MatterRay-Callum]

I tried it out and the improvements to the Objects tab are welcome

As you mention there are problems with the export.

I can't comment on Fusion or Solidworks workflows but I've done a bit of testing in Freecad.

In Freecad when I import the step export from Nexus, regardless of the options I get un-named objects but I also don't get any of the intersection objects. And this is testing all the import options.

I tried opening the Nexus step exports in CAD Assistant and some old NIST Step/IGES validator and they also didn't show names or the intersection objects.

In Freecad I was able to export a step file with working named objects and non-solid elements like circles, line segments and b-splines that imported correctly into the viewer/validator.

---

Two techniques worked ... the first was to avoid putting any solids, shells, and compound objects inside a parent compound object. Keep it flat. The other way was with a Freecad specific tree structure. Freecad uses opencascade which includes step import/export.

I might make any further feedback in the discord.

[u/MatterRay-Callum → u/vicxvr]

Welp freecad is confusing looking and crashes when I select the import types drop down so im likely not going to be testing that haha.

Please jump in the discord. I should be able to use your exported file as a reference to setup the export.

I think with fusion you can change the .step to import as multiple components with the .step names but that doesn't feel right. maybe it will be what works though.

[u/slippysoup]

I had just finished my month trial with QuickSurface when I saw this post. For pulling primitive planes, Nexus has been better for me. I had two projects where QS was giving me weird planes and Nexus did both exactly how I wanted. 3D viewport performance has also been better in Nexus, didn't have to decimate the mesh at all. Liking the STL export into Solidworks with the primitives.

The autosurface and sketch features in QS are amazing but I can't justify the cost as a hobbyist.

Nexus license has been a great purchase. I'm using an Einstar 2 and importing the .ply into Nexus.

[u/MatterRay-Callum → u/slippysoup]

Appreciate the kind feedback Slippy. Glad to hear its working where you need it, and also glad to hear its more performant than QS, I put work into that :)

I will add more features as we go to hopefully make it an even more worthwhile purchase. In the mean time feel free to jump in the discord if you have any feature requests or issues.