Exporting 3D surfaces to Microsoft or PDF
 

Has anyone on this forum found a way to embed interactive 3d plots to Microsoft Word/PowerPoint or LaTeX (via Movie15 and/or Media9 pacakges) recognized formats?
I am aware that I can export a surface as STL, but I am wondering about being able to export the geometry wireframe and then maybe either colored contour plot slices or monochrome streamlines/vectors.
This would greatly enhance the value of plots in reports that go to management or other non-CFD users. The option doesn't appear to be available right out of Ensight, but the possibilities with Python libraries and various other software - open source and commercial - is limitless.

The Microsoft 3D model formats are: .fbx, .obj, .3mf, .ply, .stl, and .glb. The LaTeX 3D model formats are: .prc and .u3d.

Hi,

Could you get any solution? Thanks.

Ali

No, I haven't received any guidance.



I think it's a little more straightforward to do with ParaView. In that case, you can export vrml or x3d (which are basically the same with x3d being a later version of the protocol). From there, you can embed the file into a webpage that could be viewed on any browser. In this way, you could generate a report as an html file (doesn't have to be actually on the internet) and have the 3d functionality.



I haven't messed around with it too much, because I resorted to recording animations and embedding .mp4 files.



You've inspired me to try this again and see if I can post a fundamental example. I don't know what is required to make the x3d interactive (zoom, pan, and rotate).

Thank you.

Actually i want to use it with LaTeX. In the past i did the following way:

• Take post process from paraview as wrml,
• Put them in Meshlab,
• Export from meshLab as u3d,
• .u3d can be embedded in LaTeX as you mentioned.

But that time the size of the pdf was too much and it was very slow. Also i could not arrange the lightings in the embedded figure. And the process was too indirect.

I will also try it again. There may be more efficient way now.

I totally agree about your this thought: "This would greatly enhance the value of plots in reports that go to management or other non-CFD users.".

Best regards.