# Convert a surface mesh to a volumetric mesh in 3D Slicer

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/convert-a-surface-mesh-to-a-volumetric-mesh-in-3d-slicer/1416>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [November 9, 2017, 11:56am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/convert-a-surface-mesh-to-a-volumetric-mesh-in-3d-slicer/1416 "2017-11-09T11:56:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 10

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 2:49pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/convert-a-surface-mesh-to-a-volumetric-mesh-in-3d-slicer/1416/10 "2019-01-07T14:49:23Z")

</div>

ICEM can import surface meshes (STL files) - see for example [this](https://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ansys-meshing/77427-meshing-stl-surface-icem.html) old forum topic. Segment Mesher can generate tetrahedral meshes that you can save in VTK unstructured grid (.vtu) file format. You may need a mesh conversion utility to convert it to a file format that can be read by your FEM software.

---

_[View the full topic](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/convert-a-surface-mesh-to-a-volumetric-mesh-in-3d-slicer/1416)._