VRML Texture Distorted

Hello Shapeways Community,
The preview of the texture file on my uploaded VRML2.0 model appears to be distorted (the main features, such as the pupils on the eyes, are in the right place, but there is a morrie / checkerboard distortion taking place--see attached photo). When I upload the same zipped files to a competitor's site, the texture loads fine. I would prefer to use Shapeways as my printing company.
Maybe the file will print without the distortion? I ordered a test-print to see.
Any suggestions regarding the distortion of the texture file are welcomed
Thank you

Hey bellandpixel, it looks like you're using Maya to export.... I've had issues exporting to VRML from Maya before.

Do you have Blender or 3DS Max? You could try exporting from one of these instead.

Many thanks for the reply! While I don't have 3DSmax I did try it with Blender with the same texture result. I chatted with Joaquin Baldwin and he had me try a couple things, but each file still has the strange artifact.

Oh Joaquin is a pro, hmmmmmmm


My guess is that this is a result of maya ordering the vertices or UVs differently than blender and our website. there might be a setting for how it organizes them, I'd see if you can check that.

Sorry I don't have maya on my laptop so I don't know specifics.

Could you check the wrl with view3dscene ? If it does not cope with the texture either, it could be that the texture is in a less common format (see recent problem with "texture atlas" instead of "texture triangle format" here). If it looks correct in view3dscene, there could be flaws in the underlying geometry which shapeways (but not view3dscene) fixes by adding or removing vertices, resulting in a texture mismatch.

Many thanks for view3Dscene! I manually changed the file-path in a text editor (MAYA was using an absolute path, even though that option was toggled off in the export module) and it loaded fine in view3Dscene. But I uploaded to Shapeways and the texture remained scrambled... strange! I did order a sample model to see if the texture is truly 'ok' and it's just a display artifact... maybe!

From my (limited) experience, the texture handling capabilities of view3dscene and shapeways are about on par, so the error might be elsewhere.
That could suggest that something in the underlying geometry is wrong - degenerate triangles, tiny holes in the mesh, triangles with their face normal pointing to the wrong side (due to wrong winding order of cornerpoints). Shapeways' site software will try to fix any such problems and "repair" a model, but in the process it may add or remove vertices, which would then cause the texture to become misaligned. Unfortunately netfabb studio basic,
the freeware tool usually recommended for checking and fixing models, does not handle vrml. Can your software export to X3D (successor to VRML, practically same capabilities, just more XML decorations), which netfabb can read ? If not, try exporting the model to STL just for checking the geometry (this format does not support color or textures, but unless the problem is in the export module, any flaws should show up in the STL representation as well). If netfabb shows a warning triangle next to the model, you can run an "analysis" to get an overview of the flaws it found, and/or run various repair modes to reorient triangles, close holes or remove degenerate triangles (that have two or all three points identical). If that gets you anywhere, you can re-export the corrected model to STL and hopefully load that into your modeling software to reapply the texture.

Many thanks for your help with this model. Joaquin had me export as STL and OBj too... I've combed over the model for deficiencies but this one is a puzzler! This was a test model for me to explore color printing so I think I will move forward with a new model (this time I will upload portions to double check the build of the model as it progresses). Thanks to everyone who has been helping me! Truly appreciated

I know this is an incredibly old thread, but I had a similar problem when exporting an X3D from Blender, so I figured anyone who stumbles upon this thread might find this useful.

I found the problem was that my object had a negative scale X transform. From what I can tell, when Blender applies the negative scale transform during the export process, it automatically inverts the face normals which shapeways doesn't seem to like.

I haven't used other 3d applications much, but it could be possible that something similar may affect your model during export.

I didn't even realize I had negative scale transforms until an unwrapping error mentioned it. This was especially tricky because I had previously applied all transforms to deltas which made Blender report all the scales as +1.0. If you aren't certain if you have a negative scale transform, you can make a new object (which will have a default scale transform), select your negative transform object, then also select your new object, then join the objects together (ctrl + J) so that the geometry of the broken object is copied into the new object. Just be wary of any hierarchies you might have to fix after this process, and you may also need to flip the normals of the old geometry.