Do a neg of a scan

Discussions MINI Series
1

Is there a simple way to do a reverse neg of a scan?
Have scanned some animal paw prints and need to print them out so the claws and pads stick out.
Sounds simple but thicko here cant suss it out.

2

Do the scan the regular way… Once you mesh it you can flip which side is the primary surface… I do it in Meshmixer easily… I believe the Revopoint software can do it also…

3

Maybe there are other methods, that are more convinient, but what I know would work is - since you need not an inverted surface, but, as I think, a solid object, you need:

  1. To get a watertight model of your scan, so it will be a solid object that it available for boolean operation
  2. Boolean it from something like a box. You’ll need a negative boolean operation. You can make it either in Meshmixer (I’ve forgot, but as I remember, there is a stable boolean operation in this software) or in Netfabb Premium. The latter can make those stable.

Here is an example. Yellow one represents a scan as a complete watertight model and the green one is a box that intersects the model, so you can cut one from another (this is a boolean operation):

Boolean1
Boolean11382×755 54.5 KB

And this is a boolean result in the NetFabb Premium (you can try it in a Meshmixer, it should work):

Boolean2
Boolean21514×740 163 KB

4

MeshMixer can do that without turning the object into a solid first, which saves a lot of computing time. I’ll make you a video of it later after I get home from work.

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5

Thanks for your help.
Would be fab if you ould do a vid.
Sure it will be useful to others as well.

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6

This actually is a great idea! Thanks!

7

if you want the cube to stay true to the original without flattening the edges then select it with Ctrl + A and then go to Edit and Remesh. This will make the mesh finer and the boolean operation will not fold your edges.

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8

Thanks for that but what I am trying to achieve is like the post above.