Imported PLY and STL models don't show up

I have been trying to import a series of head scans into blender without luck. Each model I import appears as an entry in the scene listing but does not appear graphically in the 3D viewer. The files I am trying to import are PLY files and STL files. I can view the files in MeshLab, Matlab and Mathematica, which is where they were created/processed. I am guessing the problem is that the files have errors of some kind and this prevents them from showing up - any ideas how to troubleshoot this?
I am using Blender 2.62 on Mac OS 10.6.8. I tried attaching the files but received errors, they are probably too large (2+MB)

Thanks!
Heather

Hi Heather,
This might help; select the object in the scene list, then go

Object - Transform - Geometry to Origin

It’s most likely related to your objects scale.
Cheers.

thanks! that helped with a whole bunch of them. A few still aren’t appearing though:(

Okay, another possibilty is that the scale of the object is totally of limits… i.e. the units of your object are being scaled to a too large/small size for you to see it.

Try scaling your object with a factor of either 100, 1000 or with 0.001, 0.0001.
Select Object - Object - Transformation - Scale (or shortcut, select Object, press “s” and enter factor)

Also make sure your Display View isn’t clipped too much. On the right top where the + sign is, under View - Clip.

Cheers

That did it! Thanks!