Script-based manipulation of 3D images

Question

I am working with 3D mesh files that define the surface of an object, including colour/texture data. I would like to be able to manipulate these objects to change their shape and colour characteristics e.g. colour thresholding, removing features below a certain size, expanding other features, filling in holes etc. I would like to be able to use a coding/scripting environment to provide flexibility (e.g. to apply custom colour processing algorithms) and also automated or semi-automated batch processing.

• Options explored already:

  • I am aware of MeshLab which does almost all these things, but via a GUI.
  • I have looked at MATLAB as an option, as that has exactly the type of features I am after for 2D images and a certain amount of support for 3D voxel images. But unless I am looking at the wrong toolboxes, it doesn't have many options for mesh-based images.

• Platform: Windows 10

• Cost: Free is (obviously) great, for good software I could probably budget $100s but not $1000s.
• Essential features:
  • Good colour support
  • Scripting environment
• Desirable features:
  • Good support community
  • Flexible input/output formats
  • Gentle learning curve

Answer 1

You are describing Blender3D .

It has a top tier GUI for manipulating meshes, rendering, animation, texturing and so on, and all of the parameters for everything is Python scriptable - with the hints in the GUI itself spelling what calls are needed in script to manipulate the desired attributes and properties in the objects.

Once you get the grasp of it - (ok, it may not exactly fulfill the "Gentle learning curve" requisite), it is possible to programatically encode any mesh attribute - including texture, color and so on, varying over time (time always measured in "animation frames").