topic Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow in Inventor Forum

Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

jingyi.liu — Mon, 29 Oct 2018 15:23:52 GMT

Hello

For those who had interesting on import Mesh data into Inventor, or who have downloaded Mesh Enabler from Autodesk AppStore and experienced the tool. We're hoping to hear your feedback and understand the need and how will you process Mesh data.

Much appreciated if you could complete the survey and share your thoughts.

Follow this link to the Survey:
Take the Survey

Or copy and paste the URL below into your internet browser:
https://autodeskresearch.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/preview/SV_8ivJ7olyKjy32mN?Q_CHL=preview

Thanks,

Jingyi Liu

Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

imajar — Fri, 18 Jan 2019 19:34:30 GMT

Good morning and Hello!

I have used mesh a number of times in the last few years. Some aspects of using mesh have worked wonders, some I wished there was more functionality. Below are the 4 use cases for your consideration. I am in the amusement industry mostly doing rides and roller coasters. So, my needs are a bit unusual!

1. Importing and referencing extremely huge models. Recently I received a BIM model generated in Tekla that contained a steel support structure that our project would be built in and around. This model contained 94,000 unique parts and pieces. After much pain, we discovered that trying to import this as surfaces or solids was simply too much for inventor. RAM usage was through the roof and the performance was unacceptable. We don't need to modify this structure, but we definitely need to reference it as we design. The solution was to import as a mesh. I cannot overstate the drastic improvement in performance when we switched from surface to mesh. Our workflow was: Import IFC file to Navisworks, export to FBX, import to 3ds, export to OBJ, import to inventor. Being able to import more mesh formats, mesh objects and mesh properties into inventor would be nice (direct IFC import would be super). As a thought: Inventors ability to insert Recap files and Autocad files is very nice - Could we give inventor the ability to insert navisworks files or 3DS files in similar fashion?

2. Importing photorealistic objects and environments. In the photogrammetry world, it is now very easy to generate photorealistic - and somewhat accurate - meshes from pictures and 3d scanned data. In the past I have wished to be able to bring these meshes into inventor with the color and texture information. Imagine I am designing a custom machine that will be installed at an outdoor location. What will it look like amidst the trees, flowers, adjoining buildings etc? Will it interfere with any of the tree branches? How to I help give the company CEO a sense for how large it will be and what it will look like installed? In the past, I would take a picture and set the inventor background to that picture. Then try to rotate and scale the model to make it look like it fits. Imagine instead, I scan an environment and generate a photorealistic to-scale mesh that I import into inventor. Not only could I demonstrate the 3d design and environment to the CEO, but I could design the machine inside the 3d environment. Autodesk Remake and other programs could output exactly what I wanted - Inventor just couldn't import it with the colors and textures.

3. This one is similar to 2. I have used photogrammetry to reverse engineer components that I am interfacing with, duplicate, or verify. Again, in this case I am either using the parts as reference entities or geometrically realistic placeholders. In one specific example: We were making a molded part and I wished to verify that the first article was accurate to the model. I snapped some pictures, processed the pictures in a photogrammetry software, and imported into inventor as a point cloud. Turns out that some critical dimensions were missed and we we were able to fix the mold.

4. Imagine a large inventor model that is slow and awkward to view or modify in Inventor. But that same model imported into navisworks runs fast. I think Navisworks imports everything as mesh. Could new mesh workflows be used to help ease the performance burden for large assemblies in Inventor? Could we add a mesh option for substitute assemblies?

Hope this helps.

Best Regards,

Aaron

Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 09:46:53 GMT

@imajar : While Inventor needs always to be a faster program (like almost any other program in this category) - perhaps is better to remind that a parametric model has much more editing power / flexibility than a mesh which is more or less "dead", especially when we're talking about these programs.

Also we should mention that since, usually these meshes here are just triangles they compute very, very fast but they are just an approximation of reality (for example no splines / NURBS etc.)

We need to keep in mind that meshes have their drawbacks.

In fact, this is my main request to @jingyi.liu 's team: To allow us to reverse engineer a mesh in CSG primitives (see here ) in order to allow us to manipulate the result via parametric means. Here machine learning will help a lot with the analysis on data - especially if the user will help the AI with some kind of masking / selection - basically helping / saying to the algorithm "here is a bolt", "from here to here is a cylinder" etc.

Another thing is parametrics directly on free form (T-Splines) / organic shapes / meshes. Something like this:

Parametric Free Form

This would be a killer feature: to close the gap between the parametric modellers and direct (organic) modellers.

What is painful for me is that the above image is real - it is done via annotations in Inventor. Just give us the possibility to change the value there automatically in the same way in which we do it manually (enter into Free Form environment, select the node(s), drag them...)

Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 09:56:05 GMT

Hi Jingyi!

Completed the survey - however I think that it is more to say upon this. I answered in my other post here .

Besides that, I think that the sharp rise of Integrated Manufacturing pushes us to have an integrated workflow as well because the result product should have both organic parts (meshes) and parametric parts. For example think at any ergonomic tool: the handle(s) and generally speaking the haptics and/or the styling / decorative elements tend to be organic (T-Splines / meshes etc.) while the other, mechanical parts are parametric.

Changing something in the parametric world often will impose a change in the "organic" world - for example if I change the transmission train for an engine for a drill, the cover / handle should change accordingly automatically. I don't want to be forced to redesign manually the handle just to make it longer and/or thicker.

While Mesh-2-CSG is an interesting but yet-to-explore shape recognition path, the parametric T-Splines can be implemented in your courtyard.

Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

johnsonshiue — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 15:01:41 GMT

Hi John,

Whether or not TSpline should play a role here is an unanswered technical question. It has its strength and weakness as every algorithm does. This discussion is trying to understand how our users utilize mesh and what workflows Inventor should offer.

At the moment, mesh geometry to Inventor is only for referencing purpose. There isn't a robust and easy-to-use workflow allowing users to manipulate or model in mesh. Let's even take mesh out of the equation. Mesh is just a format of choice to non-parametric data. At the moment, Inventor is not capable of rationalizing non-parametric data. This is a problem. So far, we know more and more users are getting non-parametric data. There is a need to manipulate such data. Better yet, we should allow users to rationalize the data and modify the data parametrically within certain user-defined tolerance.

We don't have a good solution yet but we are exploring opportunities. If there is more progress, you will hear it from our Beta site.

Many thanks!

Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 17:44:29 GMT

Thanks @johnsonshiue for the reply!

Agree with what you said - just to add some things: NPD = Non Parametric Data

- NPD Quality. Because there are some sources of questionable NPD (technical) quality - eg. photogrametry - there is need for tooling in order to clean it up.

- NPD Creation. Enough times it is faster / easier to create NPD than a parametric counterpart so, symbiosis makes a lot of sense in this regard. Besides that, there are times in which NPD is the only way in which something can be represented (our classical T-Splines but not only). Other times, NPD can the representation of a parametric(!) reality but outside of the world of a classic parametric (prismatic) engine like Inventor. - for example Generative Design (GD). It would be very, very, very interesting to add classical parametric artifacts - for example positioning constraints to a NPD gathered from GD in Inventor's parametric 3D space.

So I think that the key word is Convergence.

This should exist, especially in meanings - a Solid is a Solid, a Coincident Constraint is a Coincident Constraint ("This point/vertex here should be in the same place with this point/vertext there"), a Bounding Box is a Bounding Box (I can move it, rotate the object etc.) thing which imply some level of abstraction upon the data, phenomenon which will give the users much more power than now. Ok, Inventor will have its bias towards MCAD but still should have an integrated toolset because we live already in an Integrated Manufacturing world.

Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

jingyi.liu — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 05:18:58 GMT

Hi, Aaron and John

Thank you for participating the survey, and sharing your thoughts here.

The intention of the survey is to help us to understand who need to use Mesh objects, and how they process Mesh objects. We have received many feedback including both of yours, which helped us to understand gaps and challenges we have today.

I totally agree with you on the trend & need for convergent modeling, like Aaron's case to integrate BIM model (meshes from pictures and 3D scanned data), and John's case of reverse engineering and design optimization (GD). Obviously, Mesh Enabler is far inferior to fill the workflow gap.

In Aaron's case to import Tekla steel structure, to support IFC format is the most straightforward solution, it's also requested on Inventor ideas, please cast your vote if you haven't.

Regarding to scanned data and photogrammetry objects, ReCap Pro and ReCap Photo (named Remake before) should be used for data processing, suppose ReCap is capable to handle scanned data with color, I don’t know what’s the problem of the importing issue you mentioned. I saw Johnson replied your post before, I will ask Johnson for more details.

Btw, I think it’s unfair to conclude that Mesh performance is better than Brep bodies based on comparison between Inventor and Navisworks, they are two different tools to address different problems, fidelity and level of accuracy are crucial for performance.

Thanks again, we will keep evaluating mesh problem and workflow, working with other Autodesk product team to figure out feasible solutions based on Inventor workflow.

Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 08:00:36 GMT

Hi Jingyi,

Generally agree with your post. I voted on the idea you linked. Comments below:

Regarding to scanned data and photogrammetry objects, ReCap Pro and ReCap Photo (named Remake before) should be used for data processing, suppose ReCap is capable to handle scanned data with color, I don’t know what’s the problem of the importing issue you mentioned.

There are cases when the data doesn't come from ReCap but from a 3rd party team which have their workflow / tools. You just receive the mesh.

Besides that, there are operations which must be very specific to Inventor - for example the destructive commands:

Simplify / Decimation: The best practice is, by far, to keep the NPD (Non Parametric Data) in its 'raw' form, retaining all the data because it is unknown for what purpose the NPD will be used in the future: GIS, BIM, MCAD, games, medical, scientific etc. However, when we use/import the NPD in Inventor for a very concrete purpose, many times we need to change it because of various reasons, including processing speed, because the NPD often comes in very inefficient formats (read: STL, OBJ) so some NPD / mesh which in Inventor will be used at (very) small dimensions hides inside a gazillion of triangles without any effect on the final / net result. However the decision to Simplify (to reduce the number of triangles) should be done only by the environment (user + program) which knows the scope for the said operation.
Smooth: It follows a similar reasoning from above

The above operations / commands should be definitely provided for Sketch environment, but of course, applied to 2D vector data that is DXF files (UN-recommended) or SVG files (recommended) - when it will be implemented. (vote here!). I know that you use Qt and you already ship the SVG import library with Inventor - it is called Qt5Svg_Ad_5.dll (for Inv2019) located in Bin folder. Use that. Sorry, guys, but we are in 2019 - It is painful to use 3rd party software just to convert to DXF. Note: Of course that we use Inkscape (and not any Autodesk product, unfortunately) for this. As we all know, AutoCAD is built for something very different.

Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

imajar — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 20:45:59 GMT

@jingyi.liu

Hi Jingyi, thank you for taking the time to read and understand my post. It is very nice to know that someone listened.

Regarding the comment of importing the Remake (recap) mesh into inventor - I was able to import the mesh file. But remake posted the color/texture information in a separate texture file that inventor did not associate or import with the mesh (I think it was a .obj file with associated .jpg texture). So the imported geometry lacked the color information from the photogrammetry output. Without the color information, it was very difficult to distinguish topography and I ended up throwing the mesh away. I haven't tried anything since remake-->recap. Perhaps if the color information was built into the .obj it would work? But that is beyond me. . .

Also, I apologize about my comparison of Inventor to Navisworks, I should have know better. But I do still have a reason to think that mesh performance is significantly faster than Brep within inventor. Please allow me to explain and feel free to enlighten me if my observations are not correct: Recently I imported a BIM model into inventor (once as solid bodies and once a surface) and the imported model bogged my system down so badly that the imported model was unusable. So I began exploring other import methods and found that importing as a mesh into inventor yielded orders of magnitude improvement in overall performance compared to surface or solid geometry. As a reference, the files sizes of the imported geometry were: 1,150 MB (Solid), 950 MB (Surface), and 17 MB (mesh) . I did notice a loss of detail (ie. tessellation of cylindrical surfaces into triangles) and, I cannot edit the imported file. It is primarily based on this little study of mine that I suggested additional mesh workflows - such as mesh substitute representations.

Just my 2 cents. Thanks again.

Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

WHolzwarth — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 22:24:12 GMT

I've been testing similar tasks right now, too.

Goal: Creation of a 3D surface detail (my living environment) from Google Earth data, and placing the texture there. I came so far, and next step will be a 3D PDF from it.

I didn't find a solution in Meshmixer or other Autodesk products - perhaps because of all the small hills all around my region. I don't know.

But I got a promising result with importing and combining surface data and texture in Rhino.

Re: Share your thoughts on Mesh workflow

andrew_canfield — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 17:18:18 GMT

One wish list thought is for Navisworks to create drawings (or something which Inventor could import to place on a drawing).

Another thought is large models appearing on General Arrangement drawings don't need all the detail.

A flat shot 3 view & isometric - kind of Shrinkwrap (ShrinkEdge?) for drawing views.

ShrinkEdge could be used in the model - put a 2d photo on the ShrinkEdge. Would look great, just don't rotate it!