Atangeo Balancer is a popular tool to optimize and simplify 3D models.
Its exceptional performance and a novel user interface allow finding
perfect balance between visual appearance and the number of polygons,
quickly and easily. Balancer utilizes a high quality polygon reduction
(aka mesh simplification or decimation) to preserve the visual
appearance of your model. The model features, normals, texture
coordinates, layer boundaries are all honored by Balancer.
Balancer also features fast and effective triangle reordering to
speed up rendering by optimal utilization of GPU vertex cache.

Check it out, all your feedback is highly appreciated.
Hope you will find Balancer useful.

Atangeo Balancer technology is also available as an SDK,
which is 32bit and 64bit binary libraries for both Windows and Mac OS X.

Link: http://www.atangeo.com/

Looks like a really cool tool. To bad there is no Linux binary... I will have to download the demo and see if it works inside a my Windows VM.

Hi,

I would like to buy the OSX Vers. but the Shopping Card does only show the Windows vers. Therefore my question is when will be the OSX vers. available for purchase?

Regards
Stefan

Hi Stefan,

The Mac OS X version is in Beta, so we do not officially sell it yet.
If you are satisfied with the current version of Balancer for Mac OS
X, which has only several minor issues that do not affect the results,
you can go ahead and buy it here:
http://atangeo.com/buyMac

Of course, you will be able to get the final version as soon as it is
released, as well as all the future updates of Balancer 1.x.

Thanks a lot for the quick reply, just purchased my license :-)

Regards
Stefan

I have owned Balancer for some time and find it an essential tool. It is very easy to use and provides real time reduction once the initial (quick) calculations are done.

Balancer currently only supports obj import. If there is a faster obj loader out there then I'm yet to find it. The import also keeps those all important vertex normals intact.

Tech support is excellent and the Atangeo team is very open to improvement suggestions from the user base.

All in all, astonishing value for money. I don't normally give public support for other software on the forum but this one is a definite keeper.

Mark

I have to say its a really impressif piece of software.

Just did a quick test with Balancer, looks really great.
So I start from a 3DCoat voxel model, 225k polys.

I reduce it to 11k tris, using Modo, 3Dcoat export option and finally Balancer.

Modo


Takes someting like 15sec ... modo produce a lot of high valance vertex in this case, giving many shading glitches.


3DCoat:


The job is pretty nice, reduction take 2 sec or so. However, the triangulation is very unifrom, meaning less triangle where its actually needed (silhouette).
3Dcoat also produce a lot of micro triangle, that can break the shading.

Balancer:


Here s the Balancer result. Its just great from my pov. No tiny triangle, nice triangle balancing on detailled area. Seems that Balancer also care about the vertex normal from hires model, that sounds perfect for nurbs poly reduction too (but I didnèt test it yet).

Finally the process was nearly in real time (less than 1sec).



Just wondering, is the licence locked to a computer, or is it possible to put on a usb key and use it on multiple computer like MoI/Modo ?

Good question regarding the possibility of putting it on a USB stick. The Atangeo forum might be the place to ask, they have always responded quickly to my enquiries.

I've been using Balancer to reduce models from Moi with excellent results. Vertex normals have been handled very nicely on my models and it does a great job of maintaining material boundaries.

Mark

I've been running some tests on high-detail models from Rhino and Sensable's Freeform voxel sculpting program. Test meshes were in the range of 2.5m polys. Balancer handles them quite easily with good results...

Hi guys,
Thanks to everyone for very positive feedback.

PaQ,
Thanks a lot for your great comparison and review.

Balancer for Mac is now officially released!

The Windows version has been also updated
with some improvements to visualization and navigation.

And now you can run Balancer for Windows from a USB stick. :)

@PaQ
Have you try Meshlab?
http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/

and Decimation Master inside Zbrush?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTp6J644zGA

Thanks for the news!
Now that is usable from an USB stick it's very interersting!
I'll buy it for sure.
Are you planning for a combo license Win+Mac?

@falcon76

> Are you planning for a combo license Win+Mac?

Thanks for asking. We will be glad to give a discount when you buy Win+Mac.
We will check how this can be done with our shopping system.

Hi Atangeo,

Thats great, I'll probably buy a copy at the end of the month :).


Hi Pilou,

I did a quick test versus Zbrush decimation,

http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=40386
(bottom of the page)

For models comming 'outside' zbrush (the modo rhino model in this example), Balancer is much better for the same reasons I posted here : no long micro triangle, no high valance vertex = better shading, especially when you optimize your model at a very low polygon count. Silhouette and shading lools better.

Now the story is different when you decimate a model created in zbrush, maybe decimation master use the subdivision levels info somehow when precomputing the mesh, but for the same polygon count, details are better preserved in zbrush.

But I didnt made tons of test either.

Thanks for the Meshlab link, I'll give a try ... when I have some freetime.

Cheers

Balancer 1.2 is available!
Now you can control face densities for selective reduction rate of
different groups/meshes/sub-meshes. For example, you can set
density of 5 to the head group of your model, to increase the density
of the head vertices roughly 5 times.
See this user guide page here: http://www.atangeo.com/guide/density

Enjoy

Hi Guys!

I would like to let you know that Balancer 2.0 released.

Balancer 2.0 features robust and easy to use
accurate pixel-based tolerance simplification.
Now you can easily obtain desired visual quality
just in one click, without thoroughly inspecting
simplified models at different triangle count.

You specify error tolerance in pixels (say 3 pixels)
and your viewport (say 1024 by 1024), and in one click
you get a simplified model, which satisfies your quality
requirement. From any viewing direction, the resulting
model's silhouette won't deviate by more than 3 pixels.

All the rest of new features and improvements we worked on
we also added to Balancer 1.5.1 for those who purchased
Balancer 1.x.

Here is a decimation with 2 pixel error tolerance
for 480 x 480 viewport:



Balancer is available for both Windows and Mac OS X as usual:
http://www.atangeo.com/download

Enjoy!

Hi atangeo

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I've just started working with MoI (3D modelling) with the intention of modelling some jewellery pieces that I will then get printed at shapways (3D printer)
Shapeways have a limit of 64MB file size and recommend max 1 million polygons.

Would balancer be a good tool for reducing polygons for simple surfaces areas? so I can "save" polygons for high detail areas?

Does anyone here know if Wavefront (.obj) is a good format to use a shapeways, I've been using stl sofar?

Cheers, steve

Hi steve,

> Does anyone here know if Wavefront (.obj) is a good
> format to use a shapeways, I've been using stl sofar?

I'd recommend using stl format for shapeways - in general stl is the standard format for 3D printing.

Also a binary stl file should probably be a fair amount more compact than an obj file.

- Michael

Does Atangeo makes some similar thing like Decimation Master ? Better / Less / Similar ?

Hi Steve,

Balancer will do a good job by simpifying your model adaptively,
keeping as much details as possible given your required triangle count.

STL is the standard format for 3D printing. Right now, Balancer only supports .obj.
But we will release Balancer nPro just in a couple of weeks. It will have metric-based
tolerance simplification (not only pixel-based), and support of STL format.
Balancer nPro is exactly for simplifying models for 3D printing.