MeshLab Python API

MeshLab is a mesh processing application with an embedded Python console. This documentation covers the embedded Python environment and the public pymeshlab facade backed by the private _meshlab module.

For a practical overview of the in-app Python environment, see Python scripting.

The documentation is shared on purpose: the core Python API is the pymeshlab.MeshSet interface and the filter set built on top of it. MeshLab adds desktop-specific conveniences such as the predefined live ms object and the mlgui helper for view snapshots and render-state access.

API Reference

• MeshSet
  • Methods
• MlGui
  • Methods
• Filters
  • Add Noise to Vertex Color
  • Adjust Vertex Color Brightness/Contrast/Gamma
  • Adjust Vertex Color Levels
  • Adjust Vertex Color White Balance
  • Colorize Edges by Scalar
  • Colorize Faces by Scalar
  • Colorize Vertices by Disk Distance
  • Colorize Vertices by Perlin Noise
  • Colorize Vertices by Scalar
  • Colorize Vertices by Voronoi Regions
  • Compute Edge Color by Expression
  • Compute Face Color by Expression
  • Compute Vertex Color by Expression
  • Desaturate Vertex Color
  • Equalize Vertex Color
  • Invert Vertex Color
  • Set Mesh Color
  • Set Random Component Color
  • Set Random Face Color
  • Set Random Layer Color
  • Set Vertex Color
  • Sharpen Vertex Color by Unsharp Mask
  • Smooth Face Color
  • Smooth Vertex Color
  • Threshold Vertex Color
  • Tint Vertex Color
  • Compute Curvature (APSS)
  • Compute Curvature (Discrete)
  • Compute Curvature (RIMLS)
  • Compute Curvature (TrueForm)
  • Compute Gaussian Curvature (libigl)
  • Compute Principal Curvature Directions (libigl)
  • Compute Principal Curvature Directions (vcglib)
  • Define Custom Face Point Attribute
  • Define Custom Face Scalar Attribute
  • Define Custom Vertex Point Attribute
  • Define Custom Vertex Scalar Attribute
  • Compute Face Normals
  • Compute Face Normals by Expression
  • Compute Normals (TrueForm)
  • Compute Point Cloud Normals
  • Compute Polygon Face Normals
  • Compute Vertex Normals
  • Compute Vertex Normals by Expression
  • Normalize Face Normals
  • Normalize Vertex Normals
  • Orient Face Normals by Ray Casting
  • Orient Point Cloud Normals
  • Orient Vertex Normals by Cameras
  • Sharpen Face Normals by Unsharp Mask
  • Smooth Face Normals
  • Smooth Point Cloud Normals
  • Clamp Vertex Scalar
  • Clamp Vertex Scalar Gradient
  • Compute Edge Scalar by Expression
  • Compute Exact Geodesic Distance from Selection (libigl)
  • Compute Face Ambient Occlusion
  • Compute Face Quality (TrueForm)
  • Compute Face Scalar by Expression
  • Compute Face Scalar from Geometry
  • Compute Face Scalar from Raster Coverage
  • Compute Generalized Winding Number (libigl)
  • Compute Geodesic Distance from Border
  • Compute Geodesic Distance from Point
  • Compute Geodesic Distance from Selection (vcglib)
  • Compute Harmonic Scalar Field
  • Compute Heat Geodesic Distance from Selection (libigl)
  • Compute Heat Geodesic Distance from Selection (vcglib)
  • Compute Obscurance
  • Compute Point Cloud Ambient Occlusion
  • Compute Shape Diameter Function
  • Compute Signed Distance to Mesh (TrueForm)
  • Compute UV Distortion
  • Compute Vertex Scalar by Expression
  • Compute Vertex Scalar from Camera
  • Compute Vertex Scalar from Raster Coverage
  • Sharpen Vertex Scalar by Unsharp Mask
  • Smooth Vertex Scalar
  • Smooth Vertex Scalar by Hessian Energy (libigl)
  • Create Annulus
  • Create Circle
  • Create Cone
  • Create Cylinder
  • Create Dodecahedron
  • Create Grid
  • Create Handle and Tunnel Loops
  • Create Hexahedron
  • Create Icosahedron
  • Create Isosurface from Expression
  • Create Isosurface from Perlin Noise
  • Create Mesh Bounding Box
  • Create Octahedron
  • Create Plane from Selection
  • Create Points on a Sphere
  • Create Points on a Spherical Cap
  • Create Polyline from Boundary Rims (TrueForm)
  • Create Polyline from Cut Graph
  • Create Polyline from Mesh Intersection (TrueForm)
  • Create Polyline from Planar Section
  • Create Polyline from Scalar Isocontour (TrueForm)
  • Create Polyline from Selected Edges
  • Create Polyline from Selection Perimeter
  • Create Polyline from Self-Intersections (TrueForm)
  • Create Reeb Graph from Vertex Scalar
  • Create Scene Bounding Box
  • Create Solid Wireframe
  • Create Sphere
  • Create Sphere Cap
  • Create Square
  • Create Symmetric Dodecahedron
  • Create Tetrahedron
  • Create Torus
  • Create Tube from Polyline (TrueForm)
  • Create Voronoi Scaffolding
  • Create Convex Hull
  • Reconstruct Surface by Advancing Front
  • Reconstruct Surface by Alpha Shape
  • Reconstruct Surface by Alpha Wrapping
  • Reconstruct Surface by Ball Pivoting (Gruber)
  • Reconstruct Surface by Ball Pivoting (vcglib)
  • Reconstruct Surface by Kinetic Partition
  • Reconstruct Surface by Marching Cubes (APSS)
  • Reconstruct Surface by Marching Cubes (RIMLS)
  • Reconstruct Surface by Poisson (CGAL)
  • Reconstruct Surface by Scale Space
  • Reconstruct Surface by Screened Poisson
  • Reconstruct Surface by Smooth Signed Distance
  • Reconstruct Surface by Volumetric Merging
  • Reconstruct Surface by Voronoi Filtering
  • Trim Surface by Scalar Isovalue
  • Sample Mesh Elements
  • Sample Offset Surface Recursively
  • Sample Surface by Monte Carlo
  • Sample Surface by Poisson Disk
  • Sample Surface by Stratified Triangles
  • Sample Surface by Voronoi Relaxation
  • Sample Texels
  • Sample Vertices by Clustering
  • Sample Volume
  • Export Cameras from Visible Rasters
  • Import Cameras to Visible Rasters
  • Rotate Cameras
  • Scale Cameras
  • Set Camera from Direction
  • Set Camera to View Selection
  • Set Mesh Camera
  • Set Raster Camera
  • Transform Camera Extrinsics
  • Translate Cameras
  • Duplicate Current Layer
  • Extract Selected Faces
  • Extract Selected Vertices
  • Merge Visible Layers
  • Remove Current Mesh Layer
  • Remove Current Raster
  • Remove Hidden Mesh Layers
  • Remove Hidden Rasters
  • Rename Current Mesh Layer
  • Rename Current Raster
  • Split into Connected Components
  • Split into Connected Components (TrueForm)
  • Render from Render-State JSON
  • Align by Bounding Box (TrueForm)
  • Align by ICP (TrueForm)
  • Align by ICP (vcglib)
  • Align Meshes Globally
  • Align to Corresponding Points (TrueForm)
  • Compute Vertex Coordinates by Expression
  • Displace Vertices by Fractal Brownian Motion
  • Displace Vertices by Heterogeneous Multifractal Noise
  • Displace Vertices by Hybrid Multifractal Noise
  • Displace Vertices by Ridged Multifractal Noise
  • Displace Vertices by Standard Multifractal Noise
  • Displace Vertices Randomly
  • Displace Vertices toward Target Mesh
  • Project Vertices onto the Line of Sight
  • Project Vertices onto MLS Surface (APSS)
  • Project Vertices onto MLS Surface (RIMLS)
  • Sharpen Vertices by Unsharp Mask
  • Smooth Polyline on Surface
  • Smooth Vertices along One Direction
  • Smooth Vertices by HC Laplacian
  • Smooth Vertices by Laplacian (TrueForm)
  • Smooth Vertices by Laplacian (vcglib)
  • Smooth Vertices by Scale-Dependent Laplacian
  • Smooth Vertices by Surface-Preserving Laplacian (vcglib)
  • Smooth Vertices by Taubin (TrueForm)
  • Smooth Vertices by Taubin (vcglib)
  • Smooth Vertices by Two-Step Normal Fitting
  • Freeze Matrix
  • Invert Matrix
  • Mirror or Swap Axes
  • Normalize Reference Frame
  • Rotate
  • Rotate to Fitted Plane
  • Scale
  • Set Matrix from Translation/Rotation/Scale
  • Set Matrix from Values or Layer
  • Set Matrix to Identity
  • Translate
  • Compute Distance from Reference Mesh
  • Measure Chamfer Distance (TrueForm)
  • Measure Geometric Properties
  • Measure Hausdorff Distance
  • Measure Layer Overlap
  • Measure Selection Area and Perimeter
  • Estimate Radius from Density
  • Measure Face Scalar Histogram
  • Measure Face Scalar Statistics
  • Measure Vertex Scalar Histogram
  • Measure Vertex Scalar Statistics
  • Measure Abstract Domain
  • Measure Mesh Health (TrueForm)
  • Measure Mesh Summary
  • Measure Topological Properties
  • Measure Topological Properties for Quad Mesh
  • Mesh CSG Expression (TrueForm)
  • Mesh Difference (geogram)
  • Mesh Difference (libigl)
  • Mesh Difference (TrueForm)
  • Mesh Intersection (geogram)
  • Mesh Intersection (libigl)
  • Mesh Intersection (TrueForm)
  • Mesh Symmetric Difference (geogram)
  • Mesh Symmetric Difference (libigl)
  • Mesh Symmetric Difference (TrueForm)
  • Mesh Union (geogram)
  • Mesh Union (libigl)
  • Mesh Union (TrueForm)
  • Split into Solid Domains (TrueForm)
  • Remove All Faces
  • Remove Selected Faces
  • Remove Selected Faces and Vertices
  • Remove Selected Vertices
  • Convert to Pure Triangles
  • Convert to Quad-Dominant Mesh
  • Convert to Quads by 4-8 Subdivision
  • Convert to Quads by Triangle Pairing
  • Cut Along Crease Edges
  • Cut Along Scalar Isocontour (TrueForm)
  • Cut Along Selected Edges
  • Embed Polyline in Surface
  • Flip Edges by Curvature
  • Flip Edges by Planarity
  • Remesh by Abstract Domain
  • Remesh by Centroidal Voronoi Tessellation (geogram)
  • Remesh by Edge Flipping (TrueForm)
  • Remesh Isotropically (TrueForm)
  • Remesh Isotropically (vcglib)
  • Remesh to Quads (Instant Meshes)
  • Remesh to Quads (QuadWild-BiMDF)
  • Remesh Uniformly by Volumetric Resampling
  • Trim Surface by Plane
  • Simplify by Decimation (TrueForm)
  • Simplify by Error Bound (TrueForm)
  • Simplify by Quadric Edge Collapse (QSlim)
  • Simplify by Quadric Edge Collapse (vcglib)
  • Simplify by Quadric Edge Collapse with Texture (vcglib)
  • Simplify by Vertex Clustering
  • Simplify Marching-Cubes Mesh by Edge Collapse
  • Simplify Point Cloud
  • Refine by User Expression
  • Subdivide by Butterfly
  • Subdivide by Catmull-Clark
  • Subdivide by Doo-Sabin
  • Subdivide by Loop
  • Subdivide by LS3 Loop
  • Subdivide by Midpoint
  • Pack UV Charts (geogram)
  • Pack UV Charts (vcglib)
  • Defragment Texture Atlas
  • Merge Texture Islands
  • Compute Chart Segmentation (geogram)
  • Convert Per-Vertex UV to Per-Wedge UV
  • Convert Per-Wedge UV to Per-Vertex UV
  • Create Atlased Mesh from Abstract Domain
  • Parametrize by Abstract Domain
  • Parametrize by Angle-Based Flattening (geogram)
  • Parametrize by As-Rigid-As-Possible (libigl)
  • Parametrize by Atlas (geogram)
  • Parametrize by Atlas (xatlas)
  • Parametrize by Cylindrical Projection
  • Parametrize by Flat Plane
  • Parametrize by Harmonic Map (libigl)
  • Parametrize by Least Squares Conformal Maps (geogram)
  • Parametrize by Least Squares Conformal Maps (libigl)
  • Parametrize by SLIM (libigl)
  • Parametrize by Spectral Conformal Maps (geogram)
  • Parametrize by Trivial Per-Triangle Layout
  • Parametrize by Voronoi Atlas (vcglib)
  • Parametrize from Registered Rasters
  • Parametrize from Registered Rasters with Texture
  • Parametrize per Vertex by Expression
  • Parametrize per Wedge by Expression
  • Remove Isolated Components by Diameter
  • Remove Isolated Components by Face Count
  • Remove Vertices by Scalar
  • Remove Zero-Area Faces
  • Merge Close Vertices
  • Merge Close Wedge UVs
  • Remove Duplicate Faces
  • Remove Duplicate Vertices (TrueForm)
  • Remove Duplicate Vertices (vcglib)
  • Remove Unreferenced Vertices
  • Split Vertices by Attribute Seam
  • Close Holes
  • Repair Mismatched Borders
  • Extract Outer Shell (TrueForm)
  • Invert Face Orientation
  • Orient Faces Consistently (TrueForm)
  • Orient Faces Consistently (vcglib)
  • Orient Faces Outward (TrueForm)
  • Remove Isolated Folded Faces by Edge Flip
  • Remove T-Vertices
  • Repair Non-Manifold Edges
  • Repair Non-Manifold Vertices by Splitting
  • Repair Self-Intersections (geogram)
  • Repair Self-Intersections (TrueForm)
  • Repair Watertight Mesh (MeshFix)
  • Split Non-Manifold Vertices (TrueForm)
  • Dilate Selection
  • Erode Selection
  • Invert Selection
  • Select All
  • Select None
  • Select Coplanar Faces
  • Select Edges by Expression
  • Select Faces by Color
  • Select Faces by Edge Length
  • Select Faces by Expression
  • Select Faces by Scalar
  • Select Faces by View Angle
  • Select Outliers
  • Select Vertices by Expression
  • Select Vertices by Scalar
  • Select Vertices Inside Mesh (TrueForm)
  • Select Border
  • Select Connected Faces
  • Select Crease Edges (TrueForm)
  • Select Crease Edges (vcglib)
  • Select Faces from Vertices
  • Select Ill-Shaped Faces
  • Select Non-Manifold Edges (TrueForm)
  • Select Non-Manifold Edges (vcglib)
  • Select Non-Manifold Vertices
  • Select Non-Manifold Vertices (TrueForm)
  • Select Self-Intersecting Faces
  • Select Small Disconnected Components
  • Select Vertex Texture Seams
  • Select Vertices from Faces
  • Select by Screen Rectangle
  • Select Visible Faces
  • Select Visible Vertices
  • Set Texture
  • Convert Object-Space Normal Map to Tangent Space
  • Pack Texture Images
  • Transfer Abstract Domain to Another Layer
  • Transfer Color from Texture to Vertex by Closest Point
  • Transfer Vertex Attributes by Closest Point
  • Transfer Vertex Attributes to Texture by Closest Point
  • Transfer Color from Current Raster to Vertex
  • Transfer Color from Visible Rasters to Texture
  • Transfer Color from Visible Rasters to Vertex
  • Transfer Color from Face to Vertex
  • Transfer Color from Mesh to Face
  • Transfer Color from Texture to Vertex
  • Transfer Color from Vertex to Face
  • Transfer Color from Vertex to Texture
  • Transfer Scalar from Face to Vertex
  • Transfer Scalar from Vertex to Face
• Supporting Types
  • FilterInfo
  • Attributes
  • Methods
  • Attributes
  • Methods

Examples

• Getting started

Development

• Building the documentation

Design documents describing the internal architecture are available at docs/design/.