Boundary aligned remesh

June 19, 2019July 28, 2020 New Media Supply 1 Comment Remesh, Text

The Boundary aligned remesh addon is handy to remesh text or other open meshes. Especially when we convert Text to Mesh, the topology generated is not that practical. This is where the add-on comes in handy. It creates quads or triangles evenly divided while leaving the edges sharp.

How to use the Boundary aligned remesh addon?

Best is to try first with Text. Add one letter (add Text) to the scene.
In the viewport’s menu click on Object > Convert to > Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text.
Turn on WireFrame. That is: Viewport menu on top (on the right) > Overlay > check: Wireframe.
In Object-mode, click the Right Mouse Button > Boundary Aligned Remesh. (We can also press F3 and type: boundary.)
An operator will pop up. Set the Edge length to 0.02 or 0.01. And the iterations between 10 and 40. The higher the value the slower.

You see now that the Edges (boundary) is still intact. And we have a much better topology than we had. If need, we could use a decimate modifier and set the Decimate type on Collapse to reduce the polycount. It still looks good with a ration of 0.2 in this example.

Use Cases

Converting Text to Mesh and remesh it. We can now beter deform and animate it.
Simply when we want to remesh open meshes while leaving edges intact.

Where to download the Boundary Aligned Remesh addon?

You can download the addon on Blenderartists.org. (That is at the time of writing on 16 June 2019, it could be that you have to scroll down). Download and installation is as usual. That is Edit > Preferences > Addons > Install. Browse to the file, click install and active the add-on. It is a .py file in this case so probably all be fine in nearly all cases.

In case you look for a remesher for closed meshes, check the Instant Meshes Remesh add-on.