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Storyboard animation
xyxa wrote at 2012-07-14 15:56:
Thanks so much for very useful toolkit.
But unfortunately I could not create a storyboard animation via Blend for any MeshElement3D. It's strange, because I can create such animation for ModelVisual3D. What is the reason for this behavior and Is there any ways to solve it?

MeshGeometryHelper Cut Method
badgerbadger wrote at 2012-07-26 16:50:
I would like to modify the MeshGeometryHelper.Cut method so that it (also) meshes the opening created by the planar cut (i.e. currently the mesh is open at the location of the plane, I need a closed surface)
Can anyone figure out a neat way of achieving this in the Cut method? (Objo? :) ) (maybe uncommenting some of the commented-code in the Cut method achieves this..?)
Otherwise I guess I will have to get a contour of the planar mesh, attempt to mesh that surface and add to the Cut mesh - but a bit messy.
objo wrote at 2012-08-09 00:59:
Yes, you could change the cut method to also provide the contour(s). See the GetContourSegments...
When you have the contour(s), you can use the MeshBuilder.AddPolygonByCuttingEars to triangulate by the cutting/ears method (easy algorithm, but not very efficient).
badgerbadger wrote at 2012-08-09 10:41:
Many thanks Objo, yes I ended up doing something similar but used the AddPolygon instead of CuttingEars version (which I'll now investigate). I meant to post my hack but moved on to the next problem. Here is the mk1 code ( meshOrig is the original mesh while cutMesh is after the plane cut has been applied; plane is the cut plane).
I should add my code was not required to produce a nice mesh, it is only an intermediate step towards a bigger problem involving segmenting a mesh, so if others use it, it is worth investigating replacing AddPolygon (which applies a fan mesh)..
private static MeshGeometry3D MeshPlaneCut(MeshGeometry3D meshCut, MeshGeometry3D meshOrig, Plane3D plane)
{
//Store the positions on the cut plane
var segments = MeshGeometryHelper.GetContourSegments(meshOrig, plane.Position, plane.Normal).ToList();
//assumes largest contour is the outer contour!
IList<Point3D> vertexPoints = MeshGeometryHelper.CombineSegments(segments, 1e-6).ToList().OrderByDescending(x=>x.Count).First();
//meshCut the polygon opening and add to existing cut mesh
var builder = new MeshBuilder(false,false);
builder.Append(meshCut.Positions, meshCut.TriangleIndices);
builder.AddPolygon(vertexPoints);
MeshGeometry3D mg3D = builder.ToMesh();
return mg3D;
}
ulissespi wrote at 2012-12-24 08:06:
I'm also interested in having a MeshGeometryHelper.Cut that as result creates a solid (non hollow) mesh.
I changed the ApplyCuttingPlanesToModel method in the CuttingPlaneGroup.cs file, replacing the call
g = MeshGeometryHelper.Cut(g, p, n);
by
g = MeshGeometryHelper.MeshPlaneCut(g, p, n);
to use the method described in the previous post, but obviously it didn't work as the parameters are not the same.
Could you please give a bit more detail on how do you call your new method?
(maybe have a piece of the calling code)
Or if someone else found another way of resolving this issue, other code examplesare wellcome.
badgerbadger wrote at 2012-12-24 11:39:
Hi Ulissepi - I should point out that my problem wasn't concerned with drawing a cut (and closed) mesh, only in calculating the mesh so that I could apply a contour algorithm to it. If you need to display the visual then something more sophisticated will be required.
I've tried to pick out the relevant bits from my code. It's been a while so hopefully I have included everything relevant. Hope it helps!
Geometry3D originalGeometry = model.Geometry;
//create a copy of the mesh
var g = originalGeometry as MeshGeometry3D;
MeshGeometry3D gOrig = g.Clone();
//Cut the Mesh and then apply the cutplane
//cp, p & n are the cut plane (Plane3D) and the position (Point3D) and the normal (Vector3D) of the plane
g = MeshGeometryHelper.Cut(g, p, n);
g = MeshPlaneCut(g, gOrig, cp);
GeometryModel3D gm3d = model.Clone();
gm3d.Geometry = g;

Collision Detection
BCBlanka wrote at 2012-11-10 08:47:
Hello,
Is there a way to detect collision between 3D models?
Thanks
Blanka
objo wrote at 2012-11-11 22:14:
sorry, no collision detection is implemented in this library. But it would be interesting to see integration of the models defined here with bullet or some other physics library!
http://bulletphysics.org/
http://code.google.com/p/bulletsharp/
http://www.ode.org/
http://newtondynamics.com
davidop wrote at 2013-05-28 16:53:
BCBlanka wrote at 2013-05-29 10:10:
davidop wrote at 2013-05-30 11:00:
objo wrote at 2013-06-07 12:01:

Migrate to HelixToolKit WPF to HelixToolKit SharpDX
cedrelo wrote at 2014-02-07 08:50:
First really thanks for your work!!!!
I use HelixToolKit WPF to develop an WPF application of robot trajectory, i use import of .stl, camera, viewport3D, LineVisual3Ds.
It's works really great, but when we load large data and a lots of stl, the perfomance fall on
some computer.
Do you think it's possible to migrate the projet to the fork HelixToolKit SharpDX to improve perfomance ?
Does the fork has all the functionnality of the orginal project ?
It is possible to use HelixToolKit SharpDX inside a WPF application ?
Thanks
Cedre

manipulator scale problem ?
Mrme wrote at 2013-07-19 13:50:
I added a .obj model and attached a combinedManipulator to it, the combined manipulator works fine but it is super small, so I scaled it using ScaleTransform3D, but then the translation became super slow, my mouse gets to the end of the screen and the model moves only really small motion. the rotation works fine though, I wonder how can I scale it correctly to have it full functioning.
Thanks
Mrme wrote at 2013-07-24 17:15:
Thanks in advance
Mrme wrote at 2013-08-02 10:41:

Zoom out
Cygor6 wrote at 2012-11-23 22:40:
I'm beginners and would need your help! I made a console application
to save down a rendered image. BUT the camera is too close and
I can not somehow zoom out.
How do I solve this?
using System.IO; using System.Threading; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Media; using System.Windows.Media.Media3D; using System.Windows.Shapes; using HelixToolkit.Wpf; namespace ConsoleApplication1 { internal class Program { public static IHelixViewport3D HelixView { get; set; } public static Model3D MyModel { get; set; } private static void Main(string[] args) { var thread = new Thread(Test); thread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA); thread.Start(); thread.Join(); } private static void Test() { var c = new FileStream("Ferarri40.3ds", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read); var reader = new StudioReader {TexturePath = "."}; MyModel = reader.Read(c); var m = new ModelVisual3D {Content = MyModel}; const string Path = @"H:\test.png"; const int Height = 480; const int Width = 640; var vp = new HelixViewport3D {Width = Width, Height = Height}; vp.Viewport.Children.Add(m); vp.Children.Add(new DefaultLights()); var zoom = new ScaleTransform3D(1.5, 1.5, 1.5); var t = new Transform3DGroup(); t.Children.Add(zoom); vp.Camera.Transform = t; vp.Camera = CameraHelper.CreateDefaultCamera(); vp.Camera.Position = new Point3D(5.300, -12.300, 3.300); vp.Camera.LookDirection = new Vector3D(-6.300, 11.000, -6.600); vp.Camera.UpDirection = new Vector3D(0.000, 0.000, 1.000); vp.Camera.NearPlaneDistance = 0.123; var r = new Rectangle {Width = vp.ActualWidth, Height = vp.ActualHeight}; var cb = new BitmapCacheBrush(vp) {BitmapCache = new BitmapCache(0)}; r.Fill = cb; r.Arrange(new Rect(0, 0, r.Width, r.Height)); r.UpdateLayout(); vp.Export(Path); } } }

Position of imported model
afra89 wrote at 2011-12-21 10:04:
I have successfully imported an model and i can easily rotate it via the Transform property. But how can i set the position of the model? There is no .Center property like the Sphere and Cube..
objo wrote at 2011-12-21 12:47:
Use a
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.media.media3d.translatetransform3d.aspx
and
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.media.media3d.transform3dgroup.aspx
to combine it with your rotation transform.

Solved - render a scene with screen space geometry to bitmap
ezolotko wrote at 2013-08-20 06:21:
This is my dirty as hell solution to this - call this function before your render-to-bitmap code:
void InvokeRenderingEvent()
{
// For those about to hack
var mediaContextType = typeof(MatrixTransform).Assembly.GetType("System.Windows.Media.MediaContext");
var fromMethod = mediaContextType.GetMethod("From", BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
var renderingField = mediaContextType.GetField("Rendering", BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.NonPublic);
var mediaContext = fromMethod.Invoke(null, new object[] { Dispatcher.CurrentDispatcher });
var eventDelegate = (MulticastDelegate)renderingField.GetValue(mediaContext);
if (eventDelegate != null)
{
foreach (var handler in eventDelegate.GetInvocationList())
{
handler.Method.Invoke(handler.Target, new object[] { null, EventArgs.Empty });
}
}
}
Hope this will help someone, Yevgeni.

Is there any thing for moving objects?
behnam263 wrote at 2014-04-13 09:10:
I'm looking for a method or a way to move or scale or rotate objects like sphere or cube in 3d view
(not moving or rotating camera or viewport movement). Could you help me to do that?
tnx.
behnam263 wrote at 2014-04-16 23:39:

Embedded Resources
qu1ckdry wrote at 2014-03-03 17:25:
I've been enjoying the usefulness of this toolkit so far during this project! Now I'm thinking about releasing something and I'd like to embed the model I created. Is it possible to reference an embedded resource? I'd rather not release the .obj file along with my .exe.
I've read this article which uses a file stream to access a resource and I've been able to use it to open an embedded .3ds model, using:
MyModel = reader.Read(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("HelixCs.e100.3DS"));
However I'm unable to open the texture file in the same way, nor was I able to get it working with .obj.
Any ideas how I can open an embedded model?
Thanks for any help!
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