> Should I post images here?

Sure! Also if you have the original source .3dm file for any of the images that you post, please post them as well, those would help me in testing and comparing the new mesh output to your optimizations.

- Michael

> This still needs a fair amount of work to finish up, but this method generates 100% ngons and quads, no connecting triangles at all.
> Let me know if this would be useful.

Yes, very useful indeed.
Is an extra option (only quads) realistic ? I've no idea if this would be possible. I think it could be useful for further mesh deformation in other programs or for animation...

@ Frenchy Pilou :
It seems that the OBJ import of Wings3D is not the best available.
I've had problems in the past with OBJ files created in other programs and imported into Wings. In my opinion, it's probably not the best tool to validate the test files sent by Michael... ;-)

> Is an extra option (only quads) realistic ? I've no idea if this
> would be possible. I think it could be useful for further mesh
> deformation in other programs or for animation...

I don't think it is really feasible to get only quads and not ngons along trimmed areas.

I guess I can possibly imagine breaking things into a bunch of little slivery quads, but I think that would probably be about as bad as a bunch of triangles.

The underlying surfaces naturally decompose to quads, but this is interrupted where there are trim curves on the surface. There just isn't a way to get just simple quads when you've got a complex trim cutting into a quad... But ngons do work in these situations, because an ngon can hold the complex trim in one nice piece.

- Michael

Npower Software's PowerBooleans plug-in for Max does a very nice job of generating quads from complex boolean operations similar as with trims and fillets. I have no idea how this is done algorithmically, but I found this promo page at turbo-squid: http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/228190 (Login is required for the promo PDF) and this page at npower: http://npowersoftware.com/booleans/pboverview.htm (Bottom pic shows off quad boolean)

That Power Booleans example is a relatively easy one. I would be curious to see how it handles something more complex than a cylinder booleaned from a box. Is there any known examples? That could be interesting to see...

PowerBole. yes its for max but no for Rhino, and I think we wonts see Rhino plugin soon...Ill put my hope i MoI!
Ill come back tonight with images:-)

> Npower Software's PowerBooleans plug-in for Max does a very nice
> job of generating quads from complex boolean operations similar as with
> trims and fillets.

Hi Linker - this is part of the geometry library that I'm using so this mechanism is available to me. (However note that PowerBoolean plug-in that you reference handles booleans in Max between polygonal objects, not NURBS objects).

But I guess implicit in when I said earlier that it wasn't feasible, was that it wasn't feasible to do with only using the minimal number of vertices that defined the outer boundary of the ngon, without adding a whole bunch more vertices in internal to the face.

The Npower mechanism adds numerous interior vertices. You don't end up with slivery quads, but you do end up with a large quantity of small ones.

I guess it would be possible to add this mechanism in, but it doesn't appear to work on NURBS "out of the box", so it would take some effort to integrate it and I don't think that it is really the type of minimal vertex result that people seem to be desiring most. So at the moment I'm not really thinking of pursuing it, I'm focusing instead on the ngon stuff.

- Michael

Test object By Steph :)
http://annur.free.fr/MoI/PolyNightmareTest.zip
Good luck Michael !
The image :)
Ps With the actual obj export : in spite of triangles, object is some light in numbers of polygons and especially "without problem of rendering"!

It's a great model to test with, thanks!

I've attached the output of my current ngon work. There are still several issues that I'm working on.

- Michael

Michael here are the few simple egsamples of optimized meshing.
Simple cube, filleted, hole...
I saw guys posted more complexed object earlier so I dont know if these will do anything...
As simple they are I think the idea is clear!
If you want something more no problem!

@Michael
Yooo!!!
Yet Not so bad indeed ! Under C4D

Hi Kreten, thanks for posting these examples.

It looks like your optimization method is oriented towards generating quads. The method I'm working on is not going to be quite the same as that, I've attached a sample here.

- Michael

> Yet Not so bad indeed ! Under C4D

Looks really good!! It gives very much a feel of a carefully hand-optimized mesh, I think.

I'm not sure if there is any existing NURBS software out there that can do this kind of export. None that I am aware of right now anyway. This may end up being a very unique signature feature of MoI.

- Michael

From Steph
Seems a little prob with normal :"Blue" is not good oriented! (so they go to internal object)


Toon effect :)

> Few triangles here and there wont do any harm:-)

There are actually no triangles stored in the file. It looks like you're loading the .obj file into Rhino - you'll see triangles there because Rhino does not support n-sided faces in its polygon meshes, so it creates triangles for any polygons that have more than 4 sides when it reads in the .obj file.

If you read that .obj file into a modeling system that supports n-sided polygons (such as Silo, Cinema4D, etc...) you won't have any triangles at all.

You won't really see the full benefit of this new n-gon polygon export unless your target system has modern support for n-sided polygons.

But I guess that there will be some benefit even with only quad support, since there are quite a few simple quads created as well..


> Seems VERY GOOD but some of your vertices are not alined!

Yup, this is one of the areas I have left to work on. I expect to solve this. There is no actual geometric crack there though, the extra point is snapped on to the edge of the adjacent polygon, forming a so-called "T" junction.

- Michael

> Seems a little prob with normal :"Blue" is not good oriented!
> (go they go to internal object)

Yup, it's one of the areas left to tune up.

- Michael

Obj format with
Silo seems good
Blender not!

Michael heres a try I would like you to test meshing with MoI!