Does anyone know about such software for Blender?
I am looking for point cloud creation software so that we can model blender images using lasers in blocks of glass.
Thanks!
How should the point cloud be created exactly? Could you give an example?
The point cloud needs to output from blender as a standard 3d format such as 3DS.
Only points visible from the surface will be needed.
See below for an example of the type of work currently created in glass using lasers:
(What could be better than a leaping poodle?)
I suppose the simplest way is to subdivide the mesh a lot and then remove its faces (x/edges & faces). This might be just fine in case the distribution of the points doesn’t have to be even.
There are quite a many exporters in the file/export menu. Hopefully you can find one fitting your purposes.
no, a point cloud will be an even distribution (or random distribution based on distance tolerances apart) across the whole surface of the objects. Kind of like how Photons hit surfaces of things.
Alltaken
Wouldn’t the density/distribution of points have to be based on Textures rather than geometry?
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Won’t a simple particle system work?
Fligh. as far as i know, yes the density would need to be created based on a texture. i have seen these crysals with various density dots depending on the object, and depending on the final result you are looking for.
Vidar_nelson, yeah it possibly would. but do particles get evenly distributed or do they clump around high density meshes?
You can choose even particle distribution on mesh. It’s work very good.
It seems that indeed you can use particles to achieve this effect. Out of curiosity I just did a simple sample of this…
There is a simplistic model of a light bulb (with 2231 faces) and it’s acting as a base for 70000 particles. Particle material is shadeless. It came out better when I didn’t use even distribution, just verts and faces selected as a emitter.
Interestingly enough this works better with SSE2 optimized blender found here. Somehow official release didn’t give so nice results…
Did also a test animation to get better overall look. You can download it here (550 KB) if you are interested.
EDIT: Oh and about getting that particle cloud to export… Only thing that comes to mind is using dupliverts to change those particles to vertices (or whatever is needed for that point cloud export). Look here for a simple tutorial about dupliverts usage in this regard. After you have done that just press CTRL-SHIFT-A to make dupliverts real.