Export Figure to CAD

I have a figure with multiple spheres. I have the locations of the centers of the spheres and I plot the Matlab figure by the following code:

 [xx yy zz]=sphere; 
 for np=1:N
     surf(D(np)*xx/2+x(np),D(np)*yy/2+y(np),D(np)*zz/2+z(np),ones(size(zz))); 
     hold on
 end

Where D is the diameter of that particular sphere, (x,y,z) is the center of that particular sphere, and (xx,yy,zz) is used to make the surface of each sphere. It would be awesome if I could somehow save the resulting figure to a CAD file like stl or something similar. I have seen some really good files on the File Exchange, however all that I have seen only take one surface matrix as the input. Thank you for your help!

Richard

[Akshay Kumar Pakala]

Hi Richard

Were you able to figure it out?

[Richard McCulloch]

Sorry, but no I wasn’t able to end up making it work.

Answer 1

[Rahul]

Hi @Richard McCulloch,

I understand that you wish to obtain a '.stl' file of multiple spheres. There are multiple options that you can consider here, which would work with multple surface matrices.

• Consider using the 'stlwrite' function introduced in MATLAB R2018b version. This function enables the user to obtain the required '.stl' file. This function would require to combine all the spheres in a single group of faces and vertices using a 'triangulation' object.
• Another 'stlwrite' function is available on MATLAB File Exchange which is able to achieve this.

Note: Since both functions are called 'stlwrite' the File Exchange one would not work directly. Hence modifying its name manually from the downloaded folder would allow the user to use it.

Another function 'surf2stl' availble on MATLAB File Exchange submission helps to export to '.stl' files, however it is not able to export multiple 3D objects at once.

The following MathWorks documentation and File Exchange submission can be referred:

'stlwrite': https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/stlwrite.html

'stlwrite' (File Exchange): https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/20922-stlwrite-write-ascii-or-binary-stl-files

'surf2stl' (File Exchange): https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/4512-surf2stl

Thanks.