Switching between two different textures or UV maps in Meshlab

Question

I will be generating a mesh outside of Meshlab, but viewing it in Meshlab. I haven't decided on a format yet. I want to have a single file that would contain all the data - the triangles, uv maps and the textures.

However, I have 2 textures between which I want to switch. They should not be visible at the same time. Imagine I want to show the mesh with some flame texture in one moment, but with a flower texture in another - the user should be able to switch between them. I tried searching for something similar, but all I find are questions on how to combine multiple textures into a single visible one, which is not what I want. There is a way to switch the texture file via Filters->Texture->Set Texture, but I'd like something less cumbersome.

Is there some way in Meshlab to easily switch between textures/UV maps? If yes, for what formats is this supported?

Answer 1

It is sad to say... but current meshlab does support loading files with several textures (for example .ply and .obj), but AFAIK it does not let the user choose the texture/material to apply in each moment. It should be very easy to write a custom plugin to rotate between textures, but it is not done.

One easy alternative you can use and teach for your users is this:

• In your external program, create two separate files, each one with one texture. (called texture1.ply and texture2.ply in this example)
• Open both files with meshlab using command line "meshlab texture1.ply texture2.ply". You can see an strange combination of both meshes by now, because both meshes are being rendered.

• Tell your users that they can change current view with Ctrl-Click in the eye icon near of the name of each mesh. This will activate one mesh and deactivate every else.

• You can rotate/move the camera in any view and repeat Ctrl-Click in the eye icon to change to another mesh, keeping the current camera position.

Of course, if you modify a mesh (for example, selecting and deleting some faces) the changes affects only to one mesh, not the other.