Seeking speedups for tedious cleanup job

[Anonymous]

I have a complex model exported from Solidworks via VRML that has triangulation/smoothing issues.

I've started cleaning it up by hand (using delete edge, collapse vertex, target weld, and the occasional new edgeloop where a t-intersection is unavoidable), but I'm realizing it will probably take days, and my budget doesn't allow for that.

I've tried Quadrify All, but it just makes the triangulated areas worse. The image below shows a section of the model with both a cleaned and uncleaned area visible, as well as a zoom-out of the whole thing to give an idea of the magnitude of the job.

Any thoughts/scripts/freeform tools I'm not thinking of? Am I better off insisting my client re-export the part?

[Anonymous]

If the quadrify is not helping i would forget about cleaning the mesh and would start doing the retopology with the freeform tools... but if the client can provide a better model i definitely would bother him =P

[blakestone]

I wrote a script (TRI REMOVER) for removing Triangles. It uses a different method to Quadrify All... it simply locates all the Triangles in your mesh and removes the longest edge. I wrote it for something I was working on at the time and then made it available for public use.

Give it a try, hopefully it helps!

triremoverv21.zip

[Anonymous]

What would doing retopology with freeform tools look like? I've never done that before.

[yiannisk]

3dsmax has an excellent variety of retopology tools.
Give them a try.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZvhZ1OwuFk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTbJN0UjArU&playnext=1&list=PLE56D202428D3424E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOEjOFoAM6w

[Anonymous]

It is quite simple... the videos are really helpful... bear in mind that the object must be a editable poly otherwise you are not be able to see the tools.


Blakestone: great script man... i will definitely will give it a try...