What is a A 3D model 31.10.26

A 3D model is just a description of a shape in space. There are a few ways to describe it:
- Point cloud — a list of (x, y, z) points on the surface. No connections between them. Raw scanner output (laser/LiDAR); easy to capture, hard to edit.
- Mesh — the points plus triangles connecting them. That's what STL is: a shell of triangles. Most 3D printing and rendering uses meshes. (OBJ, PLY, GLB are mesh formats too; GLB adds colour/material.)
- Voxel — a 3D grid of cubes ("3D pixels"), like Minecraft. Good for volume data, chunky for smooth shapes.
- Parametric / CAD — exact math (curves, NURBS, CSG). You describe the shape by operations ("cylinder minus sphere"), not triangles. That's what jewelry CAD uses — OpenSCAD, Rhino, Fusion.
- SDF — a function giving the distance from any point to the surface. Used for smooth blending and procedural shapes.
- NeRF / Gaussian splatting — a learned model that rebuilds a scene from photos; not a hand-built model.
In practice: CAD (exact) → export STL (triangles) → slicer turns it into print layers. STL is the dumbest common denominator: geometry only — no colour, no units, no history.

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31.10.26

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What is a A 3D model 31.10.26

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