Counting faces in STL files

To help me creating statistics on collections of 3D models I developed a small application that counts the faces of models stored in STL files. It can be used to analyze a single model or a collection of models. The first is done by specifying the corresponding STL file and the second by specifying the folder that contains the collection. If you think such application might be useful, you can download the windows binary [ZIP 71KB] or ask me the cross-platform source code.

Output produced by FaceCounter application

Me and C++, a love/hate relationship

It is not something new. It has always been like that. These last two days were just another example of this. Yesterday, I was cursing C++. I have been fighting to solve some major memory leaks on my code... and it was hard... I hate C++!!! Today I finally finished solving that problem and moved forward. Moved to a completely different issue. In this I apply the flexibility and power of C++ to implement an algorithm that can be compiled using only standard libraries or using wxWidgets (and taking advantage of it). The most beautiful point is that I did it in just a couple of hours and the only thing I now have to do, if I want to switch, is change a single line of code. Indeed, I love C++!!!

OFFtoVRLM v0.3 released

Since many 3D models (especially CAD models) are stored in the STL format, I decided to include in OFFtoVRML prototype the capability to read from this type of file. Thus, among some other functionalities, such as reading OFF segmented models, and a few solved bugs, version 0.3 reads files in STL ASCII format. Bellow is a view of the VRML produced from a model extracted from the PRECISE Engineering Shape Benchmark. Another useful new feature is the possibility of including the reference axis in the VRML file.

The current stable version of the prototype is available for download [ZIP 136KB].

VRML model produced from an STL file.