8

Import ing STL Files 635
• Unknown—includes, for example, streaming
priorities,names,andblocksizes.
File Organization—Graphic display of the size of
theentirefileanditsinitialloadsegment(ILS)
portion. The ILS, in orange, consists of all the
data that must be loaded before Shockwave will
display the scene (scenegraph data, animations,
shaders, and any textures or geometry with a
streaming priority of zero). The rest of the file,
in light blue, represents all of the streamable data
w ith a non-zero streaming pr iorit y. This data w ill
cont inue to load and fil l out the detail of the scene
as the download proceeds.
Runtime Texture Information—Appro ximate
texture memory that will be required at r un time to
display the textures in the scene. Scenes requiring
more than a few megabytes of texture memory
wi ll require accelerated gr aphics cards to display
textures at their full resolution.
S tereol it hogr aphy ( ST L )
Fi les
Impor ting STL Files
File menu > Import > StereoLitho (*.STL)
An STL file saves object data in a format used
for stereolithography. STL files have a filename
extension of
.stl . There is an ASCII STL format as
well as a binary STL for mat. You can choose w hich
to create when you exp ort a 3d s Max scene.
STL fi les are generally used for purpo ses of rapid
prototyping. A variety of methods use the STL
format to construct prototypes. For example,
manySTLmachinesusealiquidpolymerand
harden it in small slices, creating a solid plastic
model. Other STL machines use metal powder to
create a model in steel. Still other machines use
aspecialwax.
You can import and export STL files. See
Exporting to STL (page 3–636) .
Interfa ce
Name—Ente r a name for the 3D Studio object
created from the STL file. Default is the file name
(without extension) or the name saved internally
in the STL file.
Weld Vertices group
Welds coincident vertices in the STL file into single
vertices in the 3D Studio mesh.