Simplest & most efficient retopology add-on for Blender 3.0? Memory efficiency Quad vs Tri Mesh

Support Modeling
1

Hi,

I am frequently working with my clients CAD models from various software sources (SolidWorks, Rhino, Catia).
Having recently started to work on real time 3D for the web (WebGL) I am facing the problem that most of the models need to be drastically reduced in facet numbers before exported to GTLF.
My apps work fine on Windows/Mac/Android, but apart from the iPadPro they have problems on mobile iOS hardware. Apple seems to have some sort of memory management which does not favour WebGL.
Takes much much longer to load on these devices and sometimes simply does not load.

In some cases its not possible to completely rebuilt these models in a simpler way and they have crappy meshes. So I need to reduce their facets with retopology.

Note, I do not necessarily need a very clean mesh, but more important a mesh which is light in terms of facet numbers while maintaining visual accuracy of geometry.
I do not want to make retopology my new hobby, but instead like to have a tool which makes this as simple and efficient as possible. One click solution with some options to adjust would be preferable, as some models have tons of surfaces which need to be edited.
I am not a perfectionist chasing the last ray of light or reflection. 80% good good looking suffices in most cases, its a good ratio regarding quality & time spent.

Now I have an issue choosing the best tool, a few of them I can’t even test as there is no demo. So maybe you folks can chip in your experiences?
I prefer an automatic solution which suggest an optimum solution.
Also, are Quad facets less memory hungry than Tri meshes?

I do prefer an add-on inside of Blender and not a separate piece of software.

I appreciate all your input & suggestions what solution would be best for my use case. Maybe someone knows another solution which is even better? Thank you!

Here are the main contenders:

Blender Internal, 0.00€
Zero cost, onboard of Blender, so thats a plus already.
Edit Mode/Mesh/Clean Up/Decimate Geometry
Edit Mode/Mesh/Clean Up/Limited Dissolve
Object Data Properties Panel/Remesh/Quad

RetopoFlow, 86.00€

Expensive
Automatic mode
I am aware that there is also the option to download it from github:

I believe its the same.
No automatic retopo, so not a good solution for my usecase.

Tessalator, 8.50€

Automatic mode
Very reasonably priced

Dynmesh/Autoflow , 15.00€/30.00€

Automatic mode
Reasonably priced
I like the feature that it suggests a mesh density.
The 30.00€ Autoflow seems to produce better results.

Quadremesher, 109.90€

Automatic mode
Expensive

2

I’ve had really good results with Tesselator, and for the price, it’s hard to complain

3

Thank you. Did you try the others as well?

Anybody else have thoughts on this?

4

Here is another one:

Speedretopo, 5€

Very reasonably priced.

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5

There’s also Autoremesher, a stand-alone open source auto-retopologizer:

Haven’t tried it myself, so I don’t know how it performs on hard-surface models.

One thing I know for sure, being familiar with all solutions mentioned so far: Quad Remesher is the king of auto-retopology in Blender, and it can usually handle hard-surface models quite well.

If you frequently work for clients from the CAD world who are used to the price tag of a tool like Solidworks, I don’t think Quad Remesher is an expensive investment at all.

You can read all about Quad Remesher in this thread:

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