A Blender add-on for efficiently reducing polygon count on hard surface meshes using planar decimation modifier.
This add-on was born out of frustration with CAD software exports that produce needlessly dense meshes. When importing assemblies (typically) containing hundreds of objects, you often end up with models containing thousands of unnecessary verts on flat surfaces. This tool allows you to quickly apply planar decimation to multiple objects at once, dramatically reducing file sizes.
- Download the zip, or clone this repo
- Drag the zip file into a running instance of blender
The add-on adds a "Batch Planar Decimate" panel to the 3D Viewport sidebar (press N to toggle sidebar visibility).
- Angle Limit: Maximum angle between faces to be considered planar (in radians). Default is 5 degrees
- Decimate All Meshes: Applies decimation to every mesh in the scene
- Decimate Selected: Applies decimation to selected meshes
Hard Surface Meshes Only: This only really works for hard-surface models, with a lot of planar geometry. It has little (possibly detremental) impact to organic meshes.
Destructive Operation: The decimation modifier is applied directly to the mesh data. Make sure to save your work before processing, or work on copies of your original files.
Possibly Slow: This potentially iterates through every mesh in the scene and applies a decimate modifier. It cannot be stopped once its started. Save your work before processing.
Blender Version: Tested on 4.5.1, but it should work down to around 4.2.0
This software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. The author is not responsible for any data loss, corruption, or other issues that may arise from using this add-on.