Uformia AS announced today that it has launched a KickStarter campaign for its new modeler, MeshUp. Based on volume modeling, MeshUp is set to overcome the many limitations of existing polygonal and surface-based modelers, particularly within the realms of 3D printing and fabrication. MeshUp is a stand-alone product with features including mesh repair, mesh combining, microstructures and watertight STL and slice generation.
"CG artists and designers know very well the limitations and tediousness of modeling with polygons," explains Turlif Vilbrandt, CTO and joint founder of Uformia. "Mesh models tend to have all kinds of problems such as cracks, holes and self-intersections. This is due to a disconnect between the real world being represented and the modeling software's attempts to represent real, volumetric, complex and “messy” objects by only surfaces."
MeshUp allows users and 3D printers to fabricate directly without the need for the complex, multistage fixing process that is usually required with traditional polygonal approaches. MeshUp is based on the same volume modeling framework that powers Uformia's existing product Symvol, which is available as an add-on for Rhino. Every object in Uformia's system is a true 3D volume (not voxels or parametric surfaces), because the software reduces each object to a mathematical function. This inbuilt definition of a model's volume makes the system ideally suited to modeling objects that are destined for 3D printing.
MeshUp offers a number of features that are of interest to the 3D printing and broader modeling communities. Users can load and combine meshes without having to worry about vertices and polygons. Meshes can be converted to a shell and microstructures can be added quickly and easily. MeshUp will also offer STL and mesh repair techniques, including a rounded repair method that attempts to take into account any missing volume. Then, when it's time for physical fabrication, MeshUp will export clean watertight STL files or slice data for 3D printing.
MeshUp will be available for Linux, MacOS and Windows. Symvol for Rhino is available as a free and feature limited Maker version while the Community version is available for €190 or approximately $246; both work on Windows and require Rhinoceros® version 4.0 SR8+. MeshUp is now a live project on Kickstarter, accepting donations.
