big objects missing after 3ds import to blender

Sorry if this question has been asked and answered before. But these forums are so full of information, and a search gave me so many results that I am sure I would still be reading them all next year…

Here’s my problem:
I have a scene once created with another 3d software and now need to import to blender for further work. The best method to exchange the data seems to be *.3ds, for with any other file format the old software is capable there is trouble while importing to blender.

When I import my scene to blender via *.3ds, everything is fine, EXCEPT for two big polygon objects consisting of 57,456 point (113,904 faces) and 165,816 points (328608 faces). The whole scene consists of 279,059 points (545,244 faces), so these two objects are definitely complex. Those two big objects are completely missing, while the rest is complete and fine.

I cannot find the objects in the objects list, which makes me think they are not only inactive in any way, but won’t be imported at all. It seems like Blender would just skip these two during the import process.

None of these or other objects has materials/textures, for I know I will have to redo the materials and the lighting in blender.

Question: is there a point/faces limit per object when importing, so that these two big objects are simply being skipped while importing? Any experience with this?

Thank you very much in advance!

The .3ds file format is complete garbage, use something else if at all possible.

Limitations with the .3ds file format itself

  • The number of vertices and polygons per mesh is limited to 65536.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.3ds
Do the object show up in the outliner ?
If they do are they very very big or very very small that you need to change the viewport start/end clipping distances

In the source application split the model into smaller pieces and retry

Thank you for your help, that was the information I needed. I followed your advice and split them up into smaller parts with less vertices. And it worked!

And yes: the *3ds was the best of the five or six formats I had to choose from. *obj and *dxf were completely messed up or causing Blender to freeze and finally crash. The other formats were not even supported by blender.

From now on, I will use Blender from the very start of any new project… However, thanks again!