×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

From Excel data to 3D drawing anyone??
2

From Excel data to 3D drawing anyone??

From Excel data to 3D drawing anyone??

(OP)
Can anyone point me in a direction?
I am trying to locate a mid to low end drawing program for generating rendered sketches of tanks from Excel data.
Does such an interface exist?
I think "mid to low end" because I don't need all the power to do everything else that the "high" end programs can do.
Maybe someone can even create such an animal and we can both get rich :)
I would appreciate any help via melmes@xtra.co.nz

RE: From Excel data to 3D drawing anyone??

You might want to take a look at POV: http://www.povray.org/

POV is an open-source rendering program.  It's been awhile since I've used it, but as I recall you describe objects using the x,y,z locations of the grid points (using FEM-speak).  If you've got all the grid points in your Excel file, then you "just" have to reformat the data for input to POV.  The final rendered images are quite nice.  At one point I did a converter for finite element data to POV input, and it wasn't too bad a chore.

RE: From Excel data to 3D drawing anyone??

A good one to try is Rhino 3D. You can import a point cloud, (your XYZ data from the excel file) and create a model from that. It comes with it's own rendering routine which is pretty good, or you can combine it with POV to get excellent results.  The help file that comes with it is excellent, and it's very easy and fun to use.  You can get a 30 day trial, and I think the URL is www.rhino3D.com

RE: From Excel data to 3D drawing anyone??

Naren, I don't deserve such accolade. Pl. allow me to set the record straight.

Here we're talking about 3-D rendered sketches - so far I have ventured into automated generation of typical 2-D engineering dwgs with the usual Plan/ Elevation/ SectionalPlan/ Sectional Elevation/ Reinf. detailing layout.

Still Naren, thank you for the compliment...

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources