New Free Automatic and Semi-Automatic Retopology Program

[TimmyZDesign]

I just found out about this free program written by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. It performs automatic retopology and also guided semi-automatic retopology. It was demonstrated at SIGGRAPH Asia 2015. You can download it from GitHub for free (the actual compiled executable app is there). The license there says that you can use it for any purpose (including commercial purposes), also see the license there for any further questions. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I am interested to see how it compares to 3D-Coat's Autopo or Zbrush's Zremesher.

 

Demo video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wtw6W4x3I

 

Download from GitHub here:

https://github.com/wjakob/instant-meshes

 

I will try to test it sometime this week if/when I get time. If you test it out, please post your results in this thread!

[L'Ancien Regime]

http://igl.ethz.ch/projects/sketch-retopo/

 

It's wicked fast TimmyZ...faster than Zbrush Remesher but I'd have to do some experiments on the mesh qualitieis.

Edited November 18, 2015 by L'Ancien Regime

[Rebelismo]

Thanks for posting! I tried the auto function on some dense 3d scans, but the results weren't too promising. I was able to crash the program multiple times, and Maya couldn't read some of the heavier .obj files. I'll try it a few more times on lighter meshes to see if I can use it in my workflow, as a helper tool to ZRemesher and Autopo. 

[TimmyZDesign]

It looks like this new autoretopology program has attracted a lot of attention!

 

There is a thread about it on Blender Artists (including tests and comparisons of it with Zremesher):

 

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?385344-Instant-field-aligned-meshes

 

And this thread about it on the Modo forum:

 

http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discussion/topic.aspx?f=4&t=117406

 

And these articles on CG Channel and CG Press:

 

http://cgpress.org/archives/instant-field-aligned-meshes-paper-and-standalone-tool.html

 

http://www.cgchannel.com/2015/11/download-free-auto-retopology-tool-instant-meshes/

 

There are also users asking for it to be integrated into 3D-Coat here on this forum:

 

http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18580

 

http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7912&p=128916

 

It seems to me that everybody is interested in Instant Mesh because it allows the user to have more control of how automatic retopology is created. Currently both 3D-Coat and Zbrush force the user to run the automatic algorithm and wait for results, and then if the results aren't satisfactory, the user alters settings and guides, then tries it again, hoping for better results. The difference with Instant Mesh is that the user can tweak the results as they are generated, allowing for more manual control, while still keeping the time-consuming parts of the retopology process automatic. I really hope Andrew and Raul have a look at this, because this is the kind of semi-automatic retopology I have been wanting in 3D-Coat for a long time, and I think this is the future of 3d-modeling!

I mean, seriously think about it, a big part of what makes traditional subdivision surface modeling difficult is the manipulation of vertices edges and faces. Just selecting vertices, moving them around, and welding them to other vertices is very tedious and time-consuming. 3D-Coat is great because it allows artists to stop worrying about vertices for most of the creation process, until the very end, when retopology is done. But wouldn't it be nice if we still didn't have to worry about vertices even for retopology? I think this is the missing link. If we could get a semi-automatic retopology feature that was so good that it gave us the exact edge flow we wanted while doing most of the heavy work for us, then maybe we could finally stop pushing and pulling verts altogether! I realize that getting a perfect result from automatic retopology is currently very difficult, but it seems to me that if the user can control it and guide it as it happens, then that would be the fastest and easiest way to get desired results.

In any case, I'm glad Instant Mesh was created because it will hopefully inspire the right kind of innovation that we need for the retopology process.

[Tarby]

The only problem I've had is with it hanging when exporting a mesh that has more than one poly island, plus the occasional hang on export with a single poly island mesh. Other than that, though, it's absolutely fantastic and intuitive and definitely the way forward. For a smooth mesh (the ones I've been testing have lots of hard surfaces, protrusions and nooks and crannies) it's an absolute breeze. Top notch.

[Aleksey]

i dunno, it looks awesome in videos. But i struggle to to actually control it. the yellow dots are mostly stuck. and i cant get a decent face mesh out of it.

 

also it doesnt support symmetry.

 

but the live preview of the edge flows is awesome. And being able to define hard edges like that is also great. maybe with more practice i'll be able to get better results.

[L'Ancien Regime]

i dunno, it looks awesome in videos. But i struggle to to actually control it. the yellow dots are mostly stuck. and i cant get a decent face mesh out of it.

 

also it doesnt support symmetry.

 

but the live preview of the edge flows is awesome. And being able to define hard edges like that is also great. maybe with more practice i'll be able to get better results.

 

 

I'd like to see if you can set the density of the mesh you're creating too. Right now it creates a fairly dense mesh.

[Tarby]

There's a slider for mesh density, but at this stage you need to reload the obj when it's changed. You can output an even higher rez quad mesh by switching on 'use dense quads' in the mesh output dialogue.

[L'Ancien Regime]

it's pretty good actually... damn fine

 

 

 

If this was open source I'd be happy to see Andrew write this solution into 3d Coat

 

 

There is a bit of spiraling but not much.

 

 

 

 

On closer examination is does have rougher edges than Zremesher. Zremesher is more fluidly contoured to the object's surface than Instant Meshes. I think you'd have to use more polys to get a usable mesh with Instand meshes.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2015 by L'Ancien Regime

[L'Ancien Regime]

Here is the 3D Coat result, set to 6500 polys and taking 55 minutes 

 

 

 

 

And I publish this with all due respects to Andrew; he was the first to come up with autoretopo working alone, and even that Swiss team of academics couldn't measure up to Zremesher and Pixologic's substantial investment.

 

Also a quick run over the autopo mesh shows  no evidence of spiraling with the edge loop tool for UV mapping.

Edited November 22, 2015 by L'Ancien Regime

[digman]

Instant Meshes... Does a great job on following the edges of hard surface objects... The down side of instant meshes is it creates a lot on N-gons plus has a lot of termination areas disrupting edge loops. It creates all even polygons through out the model regardless if it needs them or not in some areas.

 

I really do like the job it does on hard surface models as it keeps the edges very well so far in my limited testing. If they keep working on the routine after awhile they will have a bang up auto-routine.

 

I wish Andrew would set aside more development time as he is so close himself to having a very good auto- retopo routine... He spent about a week on it a few months ago and improved it but still it is a hit and miss routine at times. I know how to get a clean model to run the routine on, so my problems are not from having dirty meshes. The routine at times still adds more polygons where they are not needed and less where they are needed. Polygons still will overlap each other in areas and painting density still on my end, just really never works... I tried a bunch of times... Maybe sometimes it works. I just tend not to use it now. If Andrew can solve the last problems with auto-retopo plus really make the routine work with hard surfaces then well, that would be just fantastic.

 

Ran the ship through both routines with no setting changes and no guide stokes..

In the picture::

Left side --- Instant meshes--- about a minute in time from start to finish.  5,458 polygons of those 279 were triangles and 59 n-gons

Right side--- 3DC--- about 2 minutes from start to finish. 5018 polygons of those 4 were triangles (inside the gun barrels) and 0 n-gons.This time 3DC did a good job plus the general edge flow was better...

Edited November 22, 2015 by digman

[Carlosan]

3DC Autoretopology is very "settings sensitive" for every model.

 

User need to understand AutopoParams to get a good result, to obtain less spiral and irregularities, but numeric values ranges influence and how every parameter interact with the others will be more clear-easy.

 

 

Instant Meshes on the other side, easy pre-result visualization, give fast result and have a good predictive mesh_flow algorithm. But that speed have a down side -Digman is right-, edge interrupted and irregularities.

[Tarby]

I've managed to cleanup edges in InstantMeshes by going back and stroking the edges after examining the mesh extract. No need to start from scratch and almost immediate feedack. The occasional tris don't bother me, either, but perhaps some workflows require pure quads. I have tools in my main app (Softimage) that can quickly identify and quadrangulate or triangulate the offending culprits. This tech inside 3DC would be awesome. I suspect it'll be appearing in a bunch of apps.

 

Nice comparisons, I have to say.

[TimmyZDesign]

I've managed to cleanup edges in InstantMeshes by going back and stroking the edges after examining the mesh extract. No need to start from scratch and almost immediate feedack.

Yes, this is exactly why Instant Mesh is better than both 3DC and Zbrush auto retopo.

Instant Mesh provides good initial results, and then you take a little time to fix up the bad spots by adding some stroke guides (simply brush on the mesh and it updates), and/or move the yellow "singularity" points to get better edgeflow (also with instant feedback). This ability to edit the mesh with instant feedback is the key point that both 3DC and Zbrush lack. It's much better to quickly fix up the mesh after you see the initial results, instead starting all over again, changing settings, then waiting and hoping for better results.

[Carlosan]

This ability to edit the mesh with instant feedback is the key point.

+1