PLY from MeshLab into Blender with Vertex Color?

Support Technical Support
1

:no:

I can’t seem to find the right answer regarding “importing vertex color data into Blender” if the source data is all vertex.

I have tried exporting PLY from Blender (mesh based, not point based) with Vertex Color data into Maya and Houdini or imported back to Blender, all fine.

I have tried exporting PLY from MeshLab into Houdini and I get Vertex Color. From Houdini to Maya using FBX is all good.

But to get PLY with Vertex Color data into Blender seems to be impossible :spin:

Maya and Houdini don’t have proper PLY exporter either.

Since we have no way to import FBX (I tried FBX to DAE and still get no vertex color), I am wondering what is the alternative way to import vertex point color data?

Thanks.

2

The problem is that in blender “vertex” colors are really stored in relation to faces (one face maps to four colors) for some odd reason. This allows for sharp, non-interpolated edges, although I don’t think it’s widely used for that. Therefore, it is not possible to have just vertices with vertex colors, you will need faces, too.

3

Thanks for that info. Hopefully we can do this via Collada maybe in the future?

4

Recently, 3dcoat got vertex painting directly on voxel meshes. Can be exported as vertex color. But how to import in blender?
Both .LWO and PLY format worked just fine. Under BI or Cycles (add vertex color name on an attribute node-connect to color)

5

@Michalis
Hey, thanks for that additional information. I never really heard such thing as painting vertex directly on voxel meshes, so it is like point cloud, but also mesh?

PLY can carry vertex color into Blender and rendered in Cycles? Really?! Let me check…

6

Confirmed, importing Vertex Color into Blender (from other 3D packages) is possible via PLY. The problem is with export-import and that PLY does not always translate properly when imported into Blender.

I wrote it here on my blog as well.

Cheers!