Mesh alignment - fitting

[Mark Biasotti]

Does anyone know of a tool, or have a technique, for adjusting one mesh in the foreground (active layer) to another mesh in the background (non-active but visible layer)?

I have an actual scan of a face that I'm using to try to alter a LW built face to match. Currently what I'm doing is I have the scan in my 2nd layer and I have my face model in the active layer. I'm using Magnet to make multiple, small adjustments to my model by referencing were the background mesh comes thru my face model. It is tedious and not very accurate.

I'm wondering if there is a tool for fitting one mesh to another, without changing the topology of the current model but adjusting it's vertices to match (on same elevation) the "target" mesh. This kind of functionality is available in Reverse engineering tools but wondering if anyone has run across this problem before and has a solution?

Thanks

Mark

[kyuzo]

There's a great plugin called MovePointOnBG at... http://www.ribsngibs.com/pages/CG/plugins/plugins.html

Sounds like it might do the trick...

Derek

[zardoz]

yep that plugin will do it. you just have to use it in steps for each axis, and viewport...using the plugin in the back viewport is different than using in the front, because of the polygon normals

[Mark Biasotti]

Thanks guys, I'll give it a try. I suspect that it moves only in a linear vector (specified viewport) and I'm looking for something a bit more sophisticated that can move normal to the mesh (fitting.) So I might be able to get by by adjusting my view multiple times.

Regards

Mark

[zardoz]

I've used this plugin a few times and it works great. Unfortunately it works along the axis, and I've been dreaming about one that moves along normals. But with a few tries it works fine. The 'collision' calculation for this plugin is really good. What I sometimes do is subpatch the mesh that is going into the background and freeze it with a high subdivision and then use the plugin with the new mesh in the foreground for better collisions.

[kyuzo]

Yeah, I agree with Zardoz - use a high density mesh in the background layer, and I tend to work in the perspective view with this so it's easy to rotate you object to make up fo rit not working along normals

[ScrappyRMH]

Have you tried PointFit (http://www1.plala.or.jp/Otsuka/graphics/plugins/POINTFIT.HTML)? I haven't used it but it sounds like what you are looking for.