savebinstl.m

function savebinstl(node, elem, fname, solidname)
%
% savebinstl(node,elem,fname,solidname)
%
% save a tetrahedral mesh to a binary STL (Standard Tessellation Language) file
%
% author: Qianqian Fang, <q.fang at neu.edu>
% date: 2012/02/14
%
% input:
%      node: input, surface node list, dimension Nx3
%      elem: input, tetrahedral element list; if size(elem,2)==3, it is a surface
%      fname: output file name
%      solidname: an optional string for the name of the object
%
% -- this function is part of iso2mesh toolbox (http://iso2mesh.sf.net)
%

fid = fopen(fname, 'wb');
if (fid == -1)
    error('You do not have permission to save mesh files.');
end

if (nargin < 3)
    error('incomplete input');
end
if (isempty(node) || size(node, 2) < 3)
    error('invalid node input');
end

hddata = struct('Ver', 1, 'Creator', 'iso2mesh', 'Date', datestr(now));
if (nargin < 4)
    solidname = '';
else
    hddata.name = solidname;
end

headerstr = savejson('', hddata);
headerstr = regexprep(headerstr, '[\t\n\r]', '');
headerstr = regexprep(headerstr, '": ', '":');
if (length(headerstr) > 80)
    headerstr = headerstr(1:80); % this makes the header an invalid json string
else
    headerstr(81) = 0;
end

fwrite(fid, headerstr(1:80), 'char');

if (~isempty(elem))
    if (size(elem, 2) >= 5)
        elem(:, 5:end) = [];
    end
    if (size(elem, 2) == 4)
        elem = meshreorient(node, elem);
        elem = volface(elem);
    end
    ev = surfplane(node, elem);
    ev = ev(:, 1:3) ./ repmat(sqrt(sum(ev(:, 1:3) .* ev(:, 1:3), 2)), 1, 3);

    len = size(elem, 1);
    fwrite(fid, len, 'uint32');

    for i = 1:len
        fwrite(fid, [ev(i, :)', node(elem(i, :), 1:3)'], 'float32');
        fwrite(fid, 0, 'uint16');
    end
end

fclose(fid);