| Main | Caching | Advanced
Generates a mesh that surrounds one or more point clouds and other objects.
To apply: See Meshing Point Clouds (and Other Things) [Polygon Modeling].
To redisplay: Select the generated mesh, click on the Select panel, and then click the Polygonizer icon in the construction stack.
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Temporarily freezes the mesh so that it does not get regenerated.
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Updates the mesh when it is muted.
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Main
Surface
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The density value at which you want to generate the mesh. Higher values wrap more tightly around the inputs.
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Controls the size of the polygons that are generated. If this value too small then the mesh will miss detail and will not
follow the isosurface well. However, values that are too high can produce very dense meshes.
Under the hood, this setting controls the size of the voxels used in the marching cubes algorithm.
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Blur Isofield
Blurring the isofield produces a smoother mesh. Alternatively or in addition to using these options, you can use the options on the Advanced tab, as well as smooth the mesh after it is generated using below.
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The amount of blur applied to the isofield on each iteration. A value of 0 results in no blurring.
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The number of times to blur the isofield.
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Smooth Mesh
Applies a simple Laplacian smoothing to the resulting mesh.
Inputs
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Adds the currently selected objects as inputs for the generated mesh. You can add point clouds, curves, nulls, and polygon
meshes.
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Removes the selected objects from the inputs for the generated mesh.
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Connected Objects
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Selects all inputs for the generated mesh.
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Caching
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Controls how the generated mesh is cached:
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The mesh is always generated from its inputs.
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The mesh is generated from its inputs, and the geometry is cached to disk. Existing cache files are overwritten.
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Always read the geometry from the cache files and never re-generates the mesh from its inputs. If no cache files are found
for the current frame, an error is logged.
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Reads the cache files if available for the current frame, otherwise regenerates the mesh from its inputs.
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Reads the cache files if available for the current frame, otherwise regenerates the mesh from its inputs and caches the geometry
to disk.
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Range/Extrapolation
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Uses the specified and for caching instead of the scene's timeline.
If this option is on:
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always simulates but saves the geometry to disk only for the specified frame range.
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behaves like , that is, the mesh is neither generated nor saved to disk.
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also behaves like .
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Copies the start and end frames from the scene's timeline to the parameters below.
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The start of the range of frames to use for caching, inclusive.
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The end of the range of frames to use for caching, inclusive.
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Controls the behavior outside of the specified range of frames.
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File Input/Output
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The directory in which to store the cache files. You can use some of the tokens, such as [Project Path] and [Scene], described
in Tokens and Templates [Data Management].
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The name to use for the cache files. Again, you can use some of the tokens. Note that frame numbers are appended automatically.
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The format to use for the cache files:
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Deletes the cache files.
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Frame Offsets
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The frame offset to use when reading cache files.
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Advanced
Memory Limit
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Sets a memory limit that prevents the creation of huge meshes by mistake, for example, if you accidentally use settings that
would consume too much memory and cause a crash.
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The memory limit to use.
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Motion Vectors
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Calculates the motion vectors for rendering with motion blur, based on the point velocities of the nearest particles used
to build the mesh.
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A multiplier for the calculated motion vectors.
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Applies the scale factor to the motion vectors when reading from the cache files. This allows you to easily adjust the amount
of motion blur without re-simulating or re-building the mesh.
For example, you can leave Scale at 1 when writing the cache files, and then activate this option and adjust scale when reading.
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Geometry Cleanup
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Simplifies the resulting mesh by merging points based on distance. Values are relative to Detail. A value of 0.0 yields disconnected
polygons.
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Isofield Cleanup/Correction
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Reduces holes and indentations in the mesh by increasing isofield values in a cell when its isofield value is less than Isolevel
and neighboring cells' values are higher.
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Reduces holes and indentations in the mesh by increasing isofield values in a cell when all its neighboring cells' values
are higher.
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The number of times to repeat filling isofield valleys. Higher values produce smoother results with fewer and smaller holes
and indentations.
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Keeps a portion of the previously calculated isofield each time it updates. This allows you to create drop-shapes or trails
behind moving inputs.
The values specifies the proportion of the isofield to keep, between 0.0 and 1.0. For best results, animate the value so that
it is 0.0 at frame 1 (so that the effect starts from scratch) and the value that you want at frame 2 and later.
Note that the isofield may get reset automatically when you change certain other settings, like Detail.
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Bounding Box
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Enlarges the bounding box used to create the mesh in order to take into account the spread of the isofield caused by blurring.
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Manual Bounding Box
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Allows you to specify a bounding box explicitly. Activate this option if the mesh generated with the automatic bounding box
appears clipped, and then use the numeric options below to specify two points that define the bounding box.
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The global X, Y, and Z coordinates of the two points p1 and p2 that define the diagonal of the user-specified bounding box.
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Miscellaneous
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Use this button to force parameters that are driven by weight maps on polygon meshes (e.g., Isofactor, Radius, and Falloff)
to refresh, for example if they don't update properly after painting on the weight maps.
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