An STL by definition is a triangle mesh already. Blender has plugins to import and export STL files and all kinds of other file types.
Comment on Does anyone know how to create a 3D wireframe?
lal309@lemmy.world 8 months agoSay I have an stl of car. I would like to take that stl and import it into , push some buttons and sprinkle fairy dust to create a wireframe of said car (like in the link provided in the post) the export that wireframe to an stl, svg, or whatever I can to be used on my laser or printer.
Alternatively, if such “import” feature does not exist, then use to manually create the wireframe of a car then export it the same way as above.
moody@lemmings.world 8 months ago
lal309@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Okay that sounds like importing/exporting an stl should be an easy task. Let’s hope it is for me hahaha
monotremata@kbin.social 8 months ago
And when you say "laser or printer" here, are you referring to a 2d printer, or a 3d printer?
The questions are because, fundamentally, a wireframe image like the one you linked is just a different way of rendering the same file. So if what you want is literally an image like this, then there are tools to do that, which will depend a bit on what operating system you're using. Blender, as mentioned in another comment, is one such option.
If, on the other hand, what you want is a 3d printable structure that resembles a wireframe rendering of the object, that's a more complicated task. The STL file just lists the triangles that make up the surface of the object; in order to make a solid structure that resembles this, you'd need to create a solid (e.g. a cylinder, maybe with balls at the ends) for every edge in the file (3n / 2 edges for n triangles, since every edge in a properly printable ["manifold"] STL is shared by two triangles) and then takes a boolean union of all of them. I don't think a tool to do this exists currently, as it's a rather specialized need, but it wouldn't be too hard to throw together a python script that could take an STL file and generate an OpenSCAD script that you could then render with OpenSCAD to get the STL.