Reduces the number of triangles in a mesh while attempting to preserve its shape.
Sometimes, a mesh contains more triangles than are necessary to represent its shape accurately. The Mesh Reduce tool lets you reduce the number of triangles in a mesh (while attempting to preserve its shape) according to two different methods:
Non-editable fields displaying the number of triangles, number of vertices and deviation from the original mesh (in linear units) after each reduction step.
CHORDAL DEVIATION – The number of triangles is reduced so that chordal deviation from the original mesh does not exceed a given maximum deviation value.
FRACTION – The number of triangles is reduced down to a given percentage (fraction) of the original number.
Specifies the maximum chordal deviation distance allowed during the retessellation.
This option is only available if Mode is CHORDAL DEVIATION.
Specifies the percentage of the original number of triangles to keep in the mesh.
This option is only available if Mode is FRACTION.
If this option is checked, a color deviation map displays the deviation between the original mesh (prior to entering the tool) and the reduced mesh. A deviation scale (ramp) also appears. This shows you what areas of the mesh have been affected, and by how much.
These options only appear if Show Deviation Map is checked on.
If this option is checked (default), the color scale updates automatically based on a range between zero and the maximum deviation from the last operation.
Maximum distance between original and modified mesh shown on the color ramp. Areas on the mesh where the deviation is larger than this value are displayed in a solid color (red or purple). The default is 10.0 mm.
Upper limit for the acceptable deviation between original and modified mesh. Regions of the mesh where the deviation is smaller than this value are colored in green. The default is 1.0 mm.
Where the value of the deviation is between the Acceptable Distance and the Ramp Distance, the mesh displays intermediate colors as shown on the ramp.
Turn on this option if you are not concerned with the direction of the deviation and simply want to view absolute deviation values.