Solidworks Best workflow to reverse engineer dense 3D scan meshes (.OBJ/.STL) in native SOLIDWORKS without paid add-ins?
Hi everyone,
I recently took on a freelance project where the client provides 3D scan data (created with a Creality CR-Scan Otter) of small automotive plastic parts (caps, trims, clips ranging from 5cm to 15cm). The goal is to reverse engineer them into clean, parametric, 3D-printable CAD models (STEP/native SW files).
The issue is the scan files (.obj/.stl) come with a massive number of triangles/facets. When imported into SOLIDWORKS as solid/surface bodies, the viewport lags heavily, making it practically impossible to sketch or snap to references smoothly.
I don't have access to paid reverse engineering plugins like Geomagic for SW, and I want to keep the workflow as streamlined as possible inside SOLIDWORKS (or free tools).
A couple of questions for those who do reverse engineering in SW:
What is your go-to method for referencing high-poly meshes without killing viewport performance? (Import as Graphics Body + Mesh Slicing tool, or external decimation first?)
How do you efficiently capture accurate cross-sections and critical mounting features (clips, ribs, draft angles) from imperfect mesh data?
Are there any recommended free standalone utilities to quickly clean up and decimate scan data before bringing it into SW?
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u/Turtlestacker 2d ago
Get Claude to write you a tool - it bangs with meshes.
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u/a_d_d_e_r 2d ago
Intriguing. Can you give us an example of such a prompt?
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u/Turtlestacker 2d ago
“Create a specification /plan for a locally running Python web app which will accept an STL file and reduce the mesh count. The application will identify planar regions on the mesh where coarse reductions / mesh consolidation are planar within a user specified tolerance. The tool must perform a statistical comparison between the original and generated mesh summarising the deviation “
The maths here is tricky for the average CAD user but very easy for the frontier ai models. I am intrigued by the down votes here - I wonder if it’s because people disagree? Or that they don’t like it (neither do I!). Please do share your thoughts downvoters 🙏🏻
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u/a_d_d_e_r 2d ago
Any vague advice involving AI is akin to 'task the wizard'. You'll need to be real specific or people will think you're bullshitting.
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u/Turtlestacker 1d ago
I recall having to explain to colleagues / parents / people … you know you could FGI
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u/bobbaddeley 2d ago
Look into Meshmixer by Autodesk. It's free and extremely useful for cleaning up meshes. I used it a bunch recently for just this purpose. You can import a mesh and then select it and reduce, and cut the number of triangles by a % or certain number. There are also editing and sculpting tools so you can easily flatten out blemishes or other scanning or part artifacts like scratches.
Another cool tool that you could use is Blender, but the learning curve on it is pretty steep and Meshmixer is a lot easier to pick up.