tomwyn

Hey Luke, Don't suppose you got any further with this? Meshlab (or similar) is definitely not the way forward. Very powerful tools, but definitely not build for sequences of meshes. Much more geared towards 3D printing etc. I managed to get a consistant number of points/polys on the mesh by using the ray SOP > Casting from a tube around the mesh & transforming points However the result is much like the shrinkwrap tool, so I loose a little detail. This isn't the end of the world, however the main problem of the 'boiling' effect still persists. I'm fresh out of ideas! :/ Thanks!

Hm, yes now that I look again there was some overlap. Sorry about that, thought I'd isolated them. Here's a zip with some frames from just the rear sensor, and some kinect values. The subject here was motionless. Thanks! noise-_test_002.zip

There were actually 2 kinects (fron & back) at the following coordinates: Kinect 1 XYZ = 0.041, 1.1701,2.941 Kinect 2 XYZ = -0.920, 09.51, 1.406 Having said that, the section of pointcloud in that file will likely only be from 1 kinect source. Thanks! EDIT: also, here's more info on the sensors...

Hey Luke, That would be amazing, thanks. Been banging my head against this in Meshlab and Cloudcompare for days now. Unfortunately I can't post the whole pointcloud due to agreements, however here's a small section of it lasting 10 frames. The incoming file is a .ply, with no point normals or anything, so I've exported it as a bgeo sequence with no attribs, so it's as close to original as possible. If you would be so kind as to have a look if you get time, that would be a massive help, thanks!! noise_test_001.zip

Hey! Yes, first thing I used, alongside the particlefluidsurface SOP. But it still produces a fluctuating mesh because the point count/position of the kinect pointcloud varies from frame to frame. Does anyone know if there's a way to 're-topologize' a surface like this to a set number of points/prims? If not, even just smoothing out the 'boiling' effect from the mesh a little would be a real help.

One other 'tried and tested' area I'm exploring is scattering points onto the meshed surface, and then deforming them using the animated mesh. However this is obviously pretty tricky because of the changing poly/pointcount of the mesh. (the mesh is of a moving animal, btw)

Hi all, I'm working with some pointcloud sequences captured from a kinect, and am struggling to get a usable mesh out of them. I know that the standard procedure is to use the isosurface/particlefluid SOPs, but the changing pointcount obviously causes the topology of the mesh to change at every frame, creating that weird 'boiling' effect. I've trawled my brain, as well as these forums for a direction to go in, but am still none the wiser. Does anyone have any suggestions of how I may be able to achieve a nice constant topology from such a pointcloud? As always, any hints/pointers in the right direction will be very much appreciated!

Hi all, thanks for the responses! Thanks so much for this description Matt - very much appreciated! Got something (not as nice looking as yours) working using this as a basis, although have gone in a slightly different direction now based on client feedback.

Hey Farmfield, Having checked it out, yes, I suppose it could be done with the grain solver. However, I'd really like something that doesn't require super long sim times (which the grain solver/shelf tools definitely suffer from imho), so was hoping somebody may have a VOPs type suggestion for where to take it.

Hi all, I'm trying to recreate something like this system made by Matt Puchala at 0.07 in this video: Essentially, what I'm aiming to get is: - Fill an animated mesh with a constant number of points that follow the mesh animation. (This is obviously harder than it sounds...) - Apply collision/neighbour detect & repel force, to get the nice 'nudging' behaviour. - Copy geo onto points that adhere to mesh surface (as in video). Obviously he has made his own (awesome looking) collision detection system, but I'm wondering if a similar effect can be achieved with H's built in collision detection in POP's, and using the POP Interact? As of yet I'm having zero success, so not even a .hip to share yet, but any pointers in the right direction would be very much appreciated! Thanks. (NB. Here's a link to Matt's website, some nice looking tools on there.)

Hi all, I'd like to jump on this resurrected topic... Having exactly the same issue/error in Deadline 7 as you Doum/Derm! Did you get anywhere with the updated script? I've tried every iteration of check-box trickery I can think of, still at a brick wall though :/ Thanks in advance!

Hey Paradeep. Yes, I know the hierarchy get's exported, however I have hundreds of objects, so what I'm attempting to do is export the alembic with a collapsed hierarchy (i.e just 1 geo node in Houdini), but with the geo grouped based upon the 3DMax file structure, so I can delete unwanted geo by group. (rather than wade through hundreds of indiv nodes, manually grouping things) Again, I'm not even sure if this can be done in Alembic, but it seems to be default in formats like .obj. Another option may be to attach metadata to objects in max that identify the part of the model they come from, however I'm not sure if/how Houdini can read this metadata? I'd assume as attributes? I read some documentation stating that this metadata is stored in an embedded JSON file within the resulting alembic - Anyone ever dealt with these?

Hi all, I've spent a few days extensively reading & doing some brute force test of importing Alembics from 3DSMax into Houdini. But alas, I haven't managed to solve my issues. (I'm aware that this might not be the best place to post issues involving max, however I'm hoping that someone else has been through this process before on here, who may be able to shed some light.) My question is: 1: Is there a way to export alembics from MAX in such a way that they are grouped using their object hierarchy? (e.g left wheel, right wheel, windows of a car model.) Maybe attach some alembic metadata that Houdini could pick up? (I've already tried assigning a sequential material ID to every 'piece' in max and attaching it to indiv objects as metadata, but I'll be damned if I can find out how to read it in Houdini.) Ideally max wouldn't be part of my workflow at all, but I'm getting the geo from another artist, so I have to find a way. If anyone has any tips, they would be very much appreciated!

Hey gui, Thanks so much for that! It doesn't work straight out of the box, but certainly enough here for me to get my chops around & get something going!

HI all, My question: Can I 'extract contents' of multiple alembic container nodes simultaneously? I have an imported alembic geometry sequence, and I want to group certain areas of the geo for use in various dops sims. I loaded the alembic as 'Houdini geometry', however, inside the alembic at obj level, I have hundreds of individual alembic 'container' nodes that have individual Houdini geo nodes inside them. This would be fine if it was just a few nodes, as I can obviously rmb > extract contents. However this doesn't work for me on multiple nodes. Is there some-kind of shelf tool/script I can run? Or a certain check box on alembic import I may have missed that will give me 100% Houdini geo nodes? Sorry if this is a bit of a layperson question - One of the pitfalls of being self taught Thanks! (H 14.0.201.13)