VTK Import for Alibre Design is a Visualization Toolkit (.vtk) file import add-on for Alibre Design®. This plug-in gives Alibre Design the ability to import geometric data from ASCII and Binary VTK files.
VTK Import for Alibre Design reads polygon mesh data stored in VTK files and imports it into Alibre Design. A polygon mesh in a VTK file is comprised of a set of triangular or quad faces. VTK Import for Alibre Design creates trimmed planar surfaces for each triangle/quad and knits them together to create a body. If the polygon mesh is closed (i.e. it does not contain boundary edges) then VTK Import for Alibre Design will create a closed body feature, otherwise an open surface will be created.
VTK Import for Alibre Design is very easy to use. It adds new commands to Alibre Design. Once installed, it automatically loads itself into Alibre Design and adds a new submenu called "VTKImport" to the Alibre Design menu containing these new commands.
The 'VTKImport' submenu consists of the following commands:
Import - Import a VTK file
Help - Display the VTK Import for Alibre Design help file
Register - Register your copy of VTK Import for Alibre Design
About - Display the VTK Import for Alibre Design About box
The VTK File Format
The Visualization ToolKit (VTK) is an open source, freely available software system for 3D computer graphics, image processing, and visualization used by thousands of researchers and developers around the world. VTK consists of a C++ class library, and several interpreted interface layers including Tcl/Tk, Java, and Python. The Toolkit stores geometric data in a file format known as VTK. Very few CAD applications have the ability to read and write VTK files.