Once in Fusion create a new project and upload your STL file. If you don't have Fusion 360 you can download a free trial version. Yes we could use Maya or Blender but for me all I want is a rendering engine, not all the bells and whistles of manipulating meshes and the like (though 360 can do that too). As part of that process it includes a really great rendering engine and it's that that we're going to use.

Firstly lets look at using the wonderful Fusion 360 from Autodesk.įusion 360 is an amazing piece of software, used in industrial design to create all manner of things. But that's not where we're going to have all the rendering fun. An exported STL ready to make shiny Make it ShinyĪt this point you can open the file with Meshlab and you should see your Processing created form as a 3D object. Were mesh is the reference to your HE_Mesh object. HET_Export.saveToSTL(mesh,sketchPath(),'mymesh') To export a mesh as an STL you would write iangulate() An STL doesn't contain any texture information but we'll come back to how you can export that in a moment. There's some crazy things you can do with this library, beyond the scope of this article, but download it, play with it and create a form that you want to export as an STL. There are a couple of libraries which allow you to build 3D forms and export them in these formats but for me the best is HE_Mesh by Frederik Vanhoutte. The first thing to do is create an object in Processing that can be exported as either an STL or an OBJ. Creating an exportable 3D object A Data Terraforming application I created in Processing There's nothing amazing going on here, but I get asked about it a lot so here it is. So with that in mind I thought I'd detail how I go about creating and rendering these objects. When I posted these on Instagram I began to get people asking me how I'm getting this kind of render quality from something made in Processing. Most recently I've also taken these same objects and brought them into other software packages to create photo realistic versions, using all kinds of material properties such as glass, metal or wood. The Art of Form and Code Make it Shine: Rendering 3D Objects Made in Processingįor a few years now I've been creating physical objects from data - using Processing to essentially terraform an object such as a sphere, and then have that 3D printed either on my own Makerbot or using something a little more high-end for full-colour prints.

Fusion 360 renders