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MeshLab

MeshLab is an open-source system for processing and editing 3D triangular meshes and point clouds. It provides tools for cleaning, inspecting, rendering, and converting 3D geometry data, and is widely used in research areas such as computational geometry, 3D scanning, CAD, and scientific visualization.

Keywords: 3D, mesh, point cloud, geometry, visualization, CAD

Midway3 only

MeshLab is available on Midway3 only. It is not available on Midway2.

Available modules

---------------------------- /software/modulefiles -----------------------------
meshlab/2025.07(default)

Requirements — graphical session

MeshLab is a GUI application and requires a graphical display. You must connect to Midway3 via one of the following before launching it:

  • ThinLinc (recommended — full remote desktop, best performance)
  • X11 forwarding via SSH: ssh -X <cnetid>@midway3.rcc.uchicago.edu

Warning

MeshLab will not launch from a standard (non-graphical) SSH session.

Launching MeshLab

Once connected via ThinLinc or X11, start an interactive compute session before launching MeshLab — do not run it directly on the login node:

sinteractive --account=pi-[cnetid] --partition=caslake --nodes=1 --ntasks-per-node=1 --time=02:00:00

Then load the module and run:

module load meshlab/2025.07
meshlab

MeshLab opens as a desktop window. You can then load files via File → Open or pass a file directly on the command line:

meshlab mymodel.ply

Supported file formats

MeshLab supports a wide range of 3D formats, including:

Format Extension
Stanford PLY .ply
OBJ (Wavefront) .obj
STL .stl
Collada .dae
3DS .3ds
VTK .vtk
XYZ point cloud .xyz, .asc
E57 point cloud .e57

For a full list, see File → Open in the MeshLab interface.

Accessing your files

Your /home, /scratch, and /project directories are accessible inside MeshLab by default. If you have data under /project2, that is also available.

Notes

  • MeshLab on Midway3 runs inside an Apptainer container — this is handled transparently by the module wrapper and requires no extra steps from the user.
  • For rendering with per-vertex colors, enable Render → Color → Per Vertex in the MeshLab menu.
  • MeshLab is an interactive tool and is not suited for batch/non-interactive SLURM jobs. Always launch it from an sinteractive session, not from a login node.