cnr-isti-vclab/meshlab

MeshLab is an open source desktop application for working with 3D mesh files. If you have ever scanned a physical object in 3D, received a model from a photogrammetry workflow, or downloaded a mesh file you need to clean up or convert, MeshLab is the kind of tool built for that job. It is written in C++ and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. The software is aimed at processing and editing large, unstructured triangular meshes. A triangular mesh is the standard way computers represent 3D surfaces, where the shape is made up of many small triangles stitched together. These files often come out of scanners or reconstruction pipelines with errors, holes, noise, and overlapping faces. MeshLab provides tools to clean, repair, inspect, and convert them into a usable state. Under the hood, MeshLab is built on a C++ library called VCGlib, developed at the Visual Computing Lab of the Italian National Research Council. That library can also be used on its own for automated large-scale mesh processing without a graphical interface. MeshLab wraps it in an interactive application so you can explore its algorithms visually, which is useful for experimenting before committing to a processing pipeline. The repository contains the full source code, build scripts for each platform, sample mesh files for testing, and documentation generated via Doxygen. The project follows a two-branch model: the main branch tracks the current stable release with only bugfixes, while the devel branch collects new features for the next release. The source is released under the GPL license. If you need to prepare a 3D scan for printing, convert between mesh formats, reduce polygon count, fill holes, or perform measurements on a surface model, MeshLab is a well-established free option developed and maintained by academic researchers in Italy.