Is there any script for MoI3d to rebuild dense nurbs mesh to lighter one. Something like rebuild curve but for shapes and surfaces?

Hi bartosh, sorry no I'm not aware of any such script.

Probably the main way to reduce complexity would be to do more processing in a polygon modeling program to simplify your sub-d control cage first before doing the NURBS conversion. You'd do that by using retopology tools in the poly modeling program. There are some automated tools for this as well, check out 3D Coat or ZBrush.

- Michael

Hi Bartosh,

One method I use which works simply is to take the SUBd shape and ran a few cross section planes through the shape capturing the details where wanted. Then I use loft or curve network to manually rebuild the shape. I usually rebuild the new curve set to a lower point count so the mesh is lighter. Works well on certain shapes.

hope that helps.

Hi bartosh44.

Well...there many ways to do it.

If you want, at any cost, doing that all inside Moi, one of the ways is like AlexPolo said.

I've made a brief video example of what I'm talking about.

Is a simple use case where I have a very simple polygonal cage made in some Poly/SDS software, in this case Rocket3F, and I export it to Moi.
Than in Moi I first apply Max's subdiv and then I do a "downgrade" of topology of the resulting joined surface.

Clearly this method is good only if you don't need to exactly match the starting surface, but you can accept a certain degree of approximation.

You can watch it here : http://take.ms/diY5A

Anyway...this is a very time consuming method and I think that all should be done more easily in Poly/SDS/Sculpt environment as Michael said.

But, if you like it, consider this as a alternative way.

Bye!

Marco (mkdm)

Anyway, "bartosh44".... It's nothing personal but, it's a common courtesy to thanks those who tried to help you with answers and examples.
(Michael, AlexPolo and me)

Nothing personal....only simple education.

Bye.

Interesting technique - thanks for sharing it.

Mike.

You're welcome Mike!

Bye.

Pardon me. I didn't mean to be rude. Thanks for your answers and for time. Your answers are very helpfull for me. I`ve read it few times. I am writing not only about present thread. It`s about all my threads and all my questions.

I promise to be better :)

I`m mainly Modo and Zbrush modeler so I thought there is some hidden "magic button" ;) to do that

@mkdm: I`ve seen on your movie that you have some fancy icons palette. How to turn it on.

Hi bartosh, I didn't think you were being rude, I'm sorry if I gave that impression.

There just isn't really the same concept of reconstructing an object in a CAD solids modeler like there is in a polygon modeler. That's why it's probably better to do that type of thing in a poly modeler instead of in MoI. For simple cases you could use the techniques others described above but that won't really work with forms that have branching structures in them.

One of the things that makes that difficult with CAD solids is that in any solids that have had booleans done on them, the object is not just made up of simple surfaces, they're made up of surfaces that have trim curves on them and different faces are glued together at those trim boundaries. There's some illustration of this in this FAQ answer here. So it's not enough to just simplify the "underlying surfaces" alone, you'd have to try and simplify them while still making them intersect with each other which is really complicated.

With a sub-d model you have a particular case where there aren't any internal trim curves, the "underlying surfaces" are all matching with each other, but that's not the normal type of model that is produced in CAD. It is the normal type of thing that's produced in a polygon modeler though so it's in a polygon modeler where you'll find the reconstruction tools for that type of data as well.

- Michael

Hi bartosh44,

Attached is a .nod file to retopologize a dense nurbs surface

---

UPDATED: Only applicable for an individual nurb surface.
Will not work for a polysurface, such as imported .obj file, even after applying subD script.
Marco's method above will achieve result for polysurfaces.

---

In the image you can see the control vertices (dots) and the newly generated U&V curves.
Select all, and apply Construct/Network with setting Mode:Custom & Tolerance:0.5 (higher if desired).
Select generated surface, and apply Edit/Show pts to see vertex mesh.

Hope this helps
James

PS To run .nod file to must first open pretopologize.3dm, select it and create new Object/Selected node.
as above.

FANTASTIC JOB James !!! FANTASTIC JOB!!!

You turned into programmatic way what I've done manually!! (more or less)

Great job! Thanks a lot. This is a great stuff to study :)

You did the magic!

Thanks.

Hi bartosh44!

@You : "...Pardon me. I didn't mean to be rude. Thanks for your answers and for time..."

Ok. It's all right. You're welcome.


@You : "...I`ve seen on your movie that you have some fancy icons palette. How to turn it on..."

Well...that fancy icons palette it's part of a huge Moi's UI rewrite I did some times ago.
It includes some plugins also.
I wanted many times to publish my whole Moi's folder with all my UI's plugins and extensions, as I wrote some times in some posts,
but so far, unfortunately, I never had time to cleanup all the html/js code and the Moi's folder in order to create something easily "testable" by all other users.

For the moment all that I can do is to give you the links to the original posts where I talked about this topic :

1) http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=8122.1
"Showcase of very personal Moi"
This is not very useful because it's only a showcase of my personal Moi

2) http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=7862.1
"Scripts Icons Gallery"
Although this is not referring to what you are asking for, it's another UI's plugin that I wrote some times ago and that I daily use.
If you want to personalize your Moi in that way, you will find all the instructions into the original post.

But I want to advice you that you have to do some heavy modification on some Moi's files and if you are new to Moi maybe it's better not to do.
Or, at least, it's better that you first make a complete backup of your actual Moi's folder.

Unfortunately actually I haven't extra spare time to help you in this configuration.

Maybe some some day I will be able to publish my whole Moi's folder and you or others will be able to easily test it.

That's all!

Have a nice day.

Hello James,

Yep!

It seems that we are missing a Network node;-) And rebuild curve would also help for a complete toolchain!

In a first step we can use a loft for u or for v, but it's not the same!

Have a nice day
Karsten

Hi Karsten.

@You : "...It seems that we are missing a Network node;-) ..."

Maybe I don't remember well, but...Network node had not already been written by someone ?

Hi James,
I can not get a result having followed your instructions.
The node loads ok and runs but no result so not sure if
I'm missing something.
Any thoughts?
Cheers
Barry

Hi Barry

Try the attached, ensuring that "pretopologize.3dm" is opened prior to loading "retopologize3.nod"
"SelectByName" will auto load surface for re-topologizing.

James

Hi James,

found the problem when I opened the retopologize macro the IsoCrvs & mPathArray node are in red meaning I don't have them.
So can you post them or point to where they are on the forum please.

Cheers
Barry

Hi Barry,

Replace nodes/extensions folder with one from here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=8197.7

It would be prudent to make a copy of existing extensions folder
just in case you need to reinstate it.

James

Hi James,
sorry still no luck getting the following error message.
Cheers
Barry

Hi Barry.

I'm running "retopologize" nodes with LATEST 0.97 version of NE and all works fine.

You are running 0.96

Maybe that is the problem.

Marco (mdkm)