MeshLab is a 3D mesh processing software system that is oriented to the management and processing of unstructured large meshes and provides a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, inspecting, rendering, and converting these kinds of meshes. MeshLab is

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

, subject to the requirements of the

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(GPL), version 2 or later, and is used as both a complete package and a

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

powering other software. It is well known in the more technical fields of 3D development and data handling.

Overview

MeshLab is developed by the ISTI - CNR research center; initially MeshLab was created as a course assignment at the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa ( it, Università di Pisa, UniPi), officially founded in 1343, is one of the oldest universities in Europe. History The Origins The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place ...

in late 2005. It is a general-purpose system aimed at the processing of the typical not-so-small unstructured 3D models that arise in the 3D scanning pipeline. The automatic mesh cleaning filters includes removal of duplicated, unreferenced vertices, non-manifold edges, vertices, and null faces. Remeshing tools support high quality simplification based on quadric error measure, various kinds of

subdivision surface In the field of 3D computer graphics, a subdivision surface (commonly shortened to SubD surface) is a curved surface represented by the specification of a coarser polygon mesh and produced by a recursive algorithmic method. The curved surface, ...

s, and two surface reconstruction algorithms from

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s based on the '' ball-pivoting'' technique and on the Poisson surface reconstruction approach. For the removal of noise, usually present in acquired surfaces, MeshLab supports various kinds of smoothing filters and tools for

curvature In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry. Intuitively, the curvature is the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line, or a surface deviates from being a plane. For curves, the can ...

analysis and visualization. It includes a tool for the registration of multiple range maps based on the iterative closest point algorithm. MeshLab also includes an interactive direct paint-on-mesh system that allows users to interactively change the color of a mesh, to define selections and to directly smooth out noise and small features. MeshLab is available for most platforms, including

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

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and, with reduced functionality, on

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and iOS and even as a pure client-side

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

application called MeshLabJS. The system supports input/output in the following formats: PLY,

STL STL may refer to: Communications * Standard telegraph level *Studio/transmitter link International law *Special Tribunal for Lebanon The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), also referred to as the Lebanon Tribunal or the Hariri Tribunal, is a ...

, OFF, OBJ, 3DS, VRML 2.0, X3D and

COLLADA COLLADA (for ''COLLA''borative ''D''esign ''A''ctivity) is an interchange file format for interactive 3D applications. It is managed by the nonprofit technology consortium, the Khronos Group, and has been adopted by ISO as a publicly available ...

. MeshLab can also import point clouds reconstructed using Photosynth. MeshLab is used in various academic and research contexts, like microbiology, cultural heritage, surface reconstruction, paleontology, for

rapid prototyping Rapid prototyping is a group of techniques used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional computer aided design ( CAD) data. Construction of the part or assembly is usually done using 3D print ...

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, in

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, and desktop manufacturing.

Additional images

File:MeshLab snapshot elephant.jpg, Animal. File:Village Bourbonnais.png, Geographical data. File:MeshLab 2020.12 20221011 13 07 25- Meshes.png, Version 2020.12

References

External links

Github repository for MeshlabMeshLabJS
homepage of the experimental, client based, JavaScript, version of MeshLab that runs inside a browser.
MeshLab Stuff Blog
Development blog, with tutorials and example of use of MeshLab.
MeshLab for iOS
page dedicated to the

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operati ...

and iPhone version of MeshLab.
MeshLab for Android
page dedicated to the Android version of MeshLab {{DEFAULTSORT:Meshlab 2005 software 3D graphics software 3D graphics software that uses Qt 3D modeling software for Linux Computer-aided design software Computer-aided design software for Linux Free 3D graphics software Free computer-aided design software Free graphics software Free software programmed in C++ Video game development software

Overview

Additional images

See also

References

External links