Merge Coplanar Faces Challange

[okozlovskii]

Look at the attached picture.

We have a perfectly flat object subdivided into bunch of unnecessary polygons on the left. Is there any way (script, modifier, plugin - anything) to clean it up so it becomes like an object on the right?

I need it because exported sketchup models look like a complete mess most of the time. Completely flat faces of a model are subdivided into thousands of unnecessary polygons. 

Amazingly, Rhino 3d has a feature to clean it up. It merges all coplanar faces into one. Sketchup has a cleanup3 plugin that does the same thing. I did research and it looks like almighty 3ds max, with its 30 years of history, does not have anything of that kind. Please, prove me wrong.

[dbroad]

In the first state, deselect the corner verticies.  Then select remove.  It should remove the "unnecessary" verticies.

[okozlovskii]

I know how to do it manually. I'm looking for an automated/scripted solution. Often I have 10,000 faces like that. I will get old before I select all of them.

The picture is only an example to explain the concept.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This email has been scanned for email related threats and delivered safely by Mimecast.
For more information please visit http://www.mimecast.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[lightcube · Accepted solution]

There is a button in my Carver tool called Fix Coplanar that does this for you.

[dbroad]

Sorry,

I misunderstood.  Have you tried the built in Batch ProOptimizer?  It may do what you want.  See the help files.

[lightcube]

ProOptimizer almost works when you turn on Face Merging. But I've never found a way to get it to remove ALL coplanar faces. Instead, most are reduced but it won't actually reduce all the coplanar faces. For example, with ProOptimizer, you can take a Box with length/width/height segments set to 10. Combining all coplanar polygons would result in only 6 (quad) polygons. But instead, the best ProOptimizer does is reduce it to 12 (tri) polygons with 6 sets of coplanar polygons remaining.

[okozlovskii]

I tried proOptimizer and optimize before. As you said, it did not work as it should. The best result I've got was just just a little bit less messy than the original. Also, they operate by merging points, not faces.

By the way, creating box 10*10*10 faces, converting it to edit poly and then trying to make it a 1*1*1 face box is how I test the optimizing scripts I find online. 🙂 So far no luck.

In a way, I try to find an anti-tesselate modifier or script. If max can tesselate, I figured, it can do a reversed process too. To my surprise, it cannot. Unless there is something I do not know...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This email has been scanned for email related threats and delivered safely by Mimecast.
For more information please visit http://www.mimecast.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[lightcube]

Well, as mentioned, the Carver script above will solve this. The limitation is that it only works on editable poly objects.

[okozlovskii]

I'm sorry, I missed your first message (I did not get an email on it). It works great! At least on a test object. I need to use it for a few days and see if it works on the other things just as good. It is 5$, but, if does the trick, it is well worth it.

Thank you a lot!