Step by Step Guide to Achieving Good Quality Polygon Reduction

Given any scene with any number of models in it, this section will explain how to achieve the best possible polygon reduction quality.

 

1.    If you are reducing only a single object:

 

§      Find the instance name in the Selector window, right click on the instance name and select the "Polygon Reduction" pop-up menu item. Or, right click over top of any instance (object definition) shown in one of the 3D view windows and click on the "Polygon Reduction" pop-up menu item.

§      Press the "Reset" button on the main polygon reduction options panel.

§      Move the "Polygon Reduction Amount" slider to the desired percentage of reduction (the 80% default value will remove up to 80% of the polygons in the selected model).

§      Press the "Reduce!" button.

§      After the reduction is complete press the "Exit" button.

§      You can 'Undo' the operation by pressing Control-Z if the 'New object creation method' combo box option is not set to 'Replacing existing object'.

 

2.    If you wish to reduce multiple objects at the same time and do not wish to move all the objects into a single object prior to polygon reduction:

 

§      In the ideal case you should follow the instructions in the Geometric Error Tolerance Method tutorial.

 

§      Otherwise,

§      Method 1: Right click on the "world" instance in the Selector window and click on the "Polygon Reduction" pop-up menu item. This will apply polygon reduction to every object defined in the scene.

 

§      Method 2: From the Geometry main menu, select the "Polygon Reduction" option and then the "Reduce all objects in scene" sub-menu item. This will apply polygon reduction to every object defined in the scene.

 

§      Method 3: While in instance select mode (and not polygon select mode), select two or more instances in the Selector window. From the Geometry main menu, select the "Polygon Reduction" option and then the "Reduce selected instances" sub-menu item. This will apply polygon reduction to only the instances currently selected.

 

§       Method 4: Start up the scene spreadsheet editor by pressing Control-E. Select (highlight) one or more lines on the Geometry spreadsheet panel, choose "Polygon Reduction" from the "Operations" pop-up combo box and press the "Execute" button.

§      Press the "Reset" button on the main polygon reduction options panel.

§      Move the "Polygon Reduction Amount" slider to the desired percentage of reduction (the 80% default value will remove up to 80% of the polygons in the selected model).

§      Press the "Reduce!" button. This will apply polygon reduction to each selected object individually, such that each object is reduced irrespective of the others to the desired percentage of reduction.

§      After the reduction is complete press the "Exit" button.

 

3.    If you wish to reduce multiple objects at the same time and you do not mind moving all of them into a single object definition prior to polygon reduction:

 

§      First, you need to select which objects you want to move into a single object definition:

§      Method 1: While in instance select mode (and not polygon select mode), select two or more instances in the Selector window. Use the Ctrl key + mouse clicks to add individual objects, or use the Shift key to add ranges of objects to the selection list.

 

§      Method 2: left click the "world" instance in the Selector window to select all instances in the tree.

§      From the Geometry main menu, select the "Move Selected Objects to new Object" option and accept the default options presented to you on the small dialog box. Optionally enter a new object name when prompted. When completed all your selected objects will be moved into a single new object definition. For a very complex CAD model with thousands of parts this operation can become very slow.

§      Once all the selected objects have been moved into a single object definition, right click on the new object definition in the Selector Window and select the "Polygon Reduction" pop-up menu item.

§      Move the "Polygon Reduction Amount" slider to the desired percentage of reduction (the 80% default value will remove up to 80% of the polygons in the selected model).

§      Press the "Reduce!" button.

§      After the reduction is complete press the "Exit" button.

§      This is an optional step: Left click on the newly reduced object definition that is inserted into the Selector Window so that it becomes highlighted. Now select the "Break Apart Objects/By All Assigned Surfaces" menu item under the main Geometry menu. This will break apart the new object based on its material assignments. This is not guaranteed to return your scene to the same number of objects as before the reduction process was done, but it may do so if the original objects had unique material assignments. This is the only way to break apart your reduced model after it has been converted to a single object and reduced.