Convert Imagej Stacked tiff to stl for 3D Printing

[Rob Chapman]

I have done my usual Google searching and documentation reading but I'm
having a little trouble. I have a stacked tiff file that a faculty member
has passed on to me. They are hoping to use this z-indexed stack to print a
3D object. I've installed the 3D viewer and can view it as a 3D object but
when I go to export as stl or other format I'm told there's no mesh to
export. I don't see any way to convert the stacked image sequence to an
appropriate mesh format. If anyone could point me in the right direction
I'd very grateful. Thanks.


-Rob

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[dscho]

Hi Rob,

On Mon, 1 Apr 2013, Rob Chapman wrote:

> I have done my usual Google searching and documentation reading but I'm
> having a little trouble. I have a stacked tiff file that a faculty
> member has passed on to me. They are hoping to use this z-indexed stack
> to print a 3D object. I've installed the 3D viewer and can view it as a
> 3D object but when I go to export as stl or other format I'm told
> there's no mesh to export. I don't see any way to convert the stacked
> image sequence to an appropriate mesh format. If anyone could point me
> in the right direction I'd very grateful. Thanks.

Try the isosurface mode. STL cannot be volumetric (i.e. arbitrary pixel
values at each coordinate) but only surfaces (i.e. two-dimensional
structures separating inside from outside).

Ciao,
Johannes

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[rcomer]

I am having the same problem.  I tried to download the "IsoSurface Extractor" from http://wbgn013.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/ImageJ/extract-surface.html, but it isn't showing up in my plugins menu.  I made sure to follow their instructions exactly.  Is there something else you meant by "isosurface mode?"  Thanks a lot.

[IFKimbrough]

Just choose "Display as Surface" when viewing your multi-slice data in the 3D viewer.  You should then be able to export meshes to ASCSI or Binary .STL format.