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Here's the punchline: buy Decimator if you need to reduce the polygon counts of .3DS or VRML files and don't need to preserve textures or hierarchy. Decimator has a great algorithm- it collapses edges without adding or removing holes and it's easy and obvious to use. However, version 1 doesn't support UV mapping coordinates, hierarchies, animation data, or any other data in your 3D model.
SETTING UP. Kudos to the online distribution. I downloaded the Decimator demo off of Raindrop Geomagic's web site and had it running on my workstation in about fifteen minutes. I can't imagine an easier way to buy art tool software than downloading it from a web site, and this software really proves that.
Decimator doesn't need much computing power. This initial release of Decimator is a stand-alone program for Windows 95/NT and SGI. The minimum system requirements are 16-bit color, a 100MHz Pentium, and 32MB RAM. It ran plenty fast on my tame $2,000 workstation (a 300MHz Pentium II with 16MB VRAM and 128MB RAM running Windows 95). DOCUMENTATION. Decimator's documentation is simple: it's on the company's web page (take a look for yourself at http://www.geomagic.com/decimator 1lO guide/chapters/decimator_ frame.html). As with most software, the manuals aren't much. I wanted more detail, such as technical explanations, hints, and advice from people who have used Decimator in production. (Does it move vertices? What does it do with coincident vertices? Will it preserve vertex order? What happens to UV coordinates?) Also, more real-world examples or case studies would help illustrate the various purposes of the tools that Decimator offers. Even after reading the documents, the purpose of functions such as Relax and Smooth wasn't clear.
As I read the documentation, I also wondered, "Why does the Decimator manual refer to Wrap so much?" It was confusing. Eventually, I learned that Wrap is Raindrop Geomagic's first product; it generates a smooth surface from "point-clouds" (piles of unconnected vertices).
BASIC USAGE. Here's a real-world example of how you might use Decimator. I built an example model of a warrior princess (Figure 1) in about 20 seconds. (Amazingly enough, I'm giving this fantastic model away free to anyone who writes. No, really.) So let's say we're totally thrilled with our 5,000 polygon character, but those darned...