Measuring an irregular volume from a .stl file captured with a 3D camera

Hi All,

I’m quite new to Blender so I am struggling with the following problem - any help at all would be much appreciated!!

I have a .stl file captured using a 3D camera which I have imported into blender. I’m capturing various things, but basically it is always a curved convex or concave surface with an irregular object on top. For example, a lump of clay on the back of a hand. The 3D camera (as I’m sure you’re all already aware) creates a sort of surface “cast” of the scene.

Aim: I want to be able to measure the volume of that clay taking into account the curvature of the hand. The problem being that the surface the clay is on cannot be scanned beforehand and subtracted!

From what I gather I would need to somehow “intrude” the clay to actually create a volume to measure (perhaps measured using the 3D printer tools that come pre-packed with blender). But, I need to somehow do this so that the base of the clay is curved, as it is on the back of the hand, not a straight plane.

The eventual dream (and it is still very much a dream!), is to write a script in python that would take a user defined area (the edges of the clay) and use the surrounding cm or so of surface to predict the surface underlying the clay/extrude the “cast” of the clay down to that surface and measure the volume of the clay.

Thanks again for any help! :slight_smile:
Liam

Hi All,

Any help is much appreciated. I’m new to Blender and have tried numerous ways to get this to work but am now struggling.

I have a .stl file from a 3D camera (see images). I want to measure the volume of the object on the curved surface - taking into account the curvature of the surface.



Eventually the aim is to write a python script to run in Blender on a user selected area (the object on the surface) which will calculate the volume and surface area of the object.

Thank you in advance for any help you can contribute!
Cato

MODERATION
Threads merged.
Please don’t start duplicate threads. If you have more info to supply add that to your original thread

need more info !

what volume ?

can you make a blend file showing the surface before
then another one showing the volume required !

thanks
happy bl