Using Meshlab to Clean and Assemble Laser Scan Data

Step 6 Mesh Smoothing and Reconstruction

To create a smoothed mesh, click on Filters/Remeshing, simplification and reconstruction/Poisson Reconstruction. A pop-up window will open with several options. The settings that have brought the best results so far a and Octree Depth - 11, Solver Divide - 7, Sample per Node - 1 and Surface offsetting - 1, but you may find that different settings provide better results. Click Apply and let the process run its course.

It may take a while depending on the speed of your computer and the size of the mesh file. Once the process is finished, click on the Layer Dialog icon and hide the original mesh file. If you don't do this, it may appear that the process has failed. The new mesh will be watertight, meaning that there are no holes in the mesh and can be exported for rapid prototyping.

Meshlab is capable of exporting the watertight mesh into a variety of file formats such as .STL, .OBJ, .PLY, .3DS and .U3D among others. This makes it a great tool for converting your mesh into a format that can be imported into a 3D modeling program such as 3D Studio Max, Silo 3D, Blender or to integrate your file into .PDF file using Adobe Acrobat 9.