Scan Cleanup & Remesh Utility

Scan Cleanup & Remesh Utility

Module: Modeling · Category: Modeling · Tool ID: ScanCleanupRemeshUtility

A five-tab workshop for taming scanned and raw geometry. Remesh rebuilds a mesh to a uniform face count. Hole Fill finds and patches boundary holes. Self-Intersection detects and resolves overlapping faces. Component Isolation breaks a mesh into its connected pieces. Topology Analyzer maps edge loops and runs edge-flow smoothing.

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When to use it

• Bringing photogrammetry / 3D scan data into a real-time pipeline — typically too dense, full of holes, often self-intersecting
• Cleaning up CAD imports that come in as a single fused mesh with hidden internal geometry
• Pre-Nanite preparation — Nanite handles density beautifully but still benefits from watertight, well-formed input
• Topology research — analyzing edge flow on a reference mesh before retopo

When not to use it

• Don’t use this for hand-authored low-poly meshes — the operations are aggressive and assume scanner-quality input
• Don’t expect this to replace ZBrush / 3D-Coat / similar — it’s a triage and cleanup tool, not a full sculpting/retopo suite

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Opening the tool

1. Open the EQLabs Hub and search for Scan Cleanup (or browse to Modeling → Modeling)
2. Click the tool card
3. Use the tab bar at the top to pick the operation you need

Each tab works on a single Static Mesh asset at a time, picked via the Static Mesh field on that tab.

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Tab 1 — Remesh

Uniform edge-length remeshing to a target face count. Useful for normalizing density on scanned meshes.

Interface

Field	What it does	Default
Static Mesh	The mesh to remesh	(empty)
Target Face Count	The output triangle count after remeshing	5000
Voxel Resolution	Internal voxel grid resolution — higher preserves detail but is slower	128
Remesh button	Runs the remesh operation. Creates a new _Remesh asset (non-destructive).

How it works

Internally voxelizes the mesh at Voxel Resolution, then meshes the voxel surface at an edge length tuned to hit Target Face Count. The result is a uniform-density mesh.

Workflow

1. Drop a Static Mesh into the field
2. Set Target Face Count — start with 5000 for a hero asset, drop to 1500 for low-poly background dressing
3. Adjust Voxel Resolution if details are lost (256 for fine features, 64 for blobby targets)
4. Click Remesh. A new <MeshName>_Remesh asset is created in the same folder.

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Tab 2 — Hole Fill

Detects boundary edges and fills holes up to a configurable size.

Interface

Field	What it does	Default
Static Mesh	The mesh to inspect	(empty)
Hole Size Threshold	Maximum hole perimeter to fill. Holes larger than this are left alone (typically these are intentional openings).	10.0
Fill Strategy	Planar / Smooth / Minimal	Planar
Detect Holes button	Scans for boundary edges and lists holes by perimeter
Fill All button	Fills every hole in the list using the selected strategy
Holes list	Per-hole row: index, edge count, perimeter

Fill strategies

Strategy	What it does
Planar	Flat triangle fan — fast and predictable, best for small holes
Smooth	Interpolated fill matching surrounding curvature — best for organic surfaces
Minimal	Fewest new triangles — best when minimizing density matters

Workflow

1. Drop a Static Mesh
2. Click Detect Holes — list populates with every boundary loop
3. Tune Hole Size Threshold so the threshold-bigger holes (legitimate openings like windows or doorways) are excluded
4. Pick a Fill Strategy that matches the surface character
5. Click Fill All

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Tab 3 — Self-Intersection Detection

Finds faces that intersect each other — common in scanned meshes where the surface folds back on itself.

Interface

Field	What it does
Static Mesh	The mesh to scan
Scan Intersections button	Walks all face pairs looking for intersections
Resolve All button	Attempts automatic resolution of every detected intersection
Intersections list	Per-pair row: face IDs and a description

Workflow

1. Drop a Static Mesh, click Scan Intersections
2. If the list is short, eyeball each entry and decide whether auto-resolve makes sense
3. Click Resolve All to apply automatic resolution
4. Re-scan to confirm

Self-intersection resolution is best-effort; severely tangled scanned meshes may need manual cleanup in a DCC.

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Tab 4 — Component Isolation

Decomposes a mesh into its connected components and lets you extract individual pieces as separate assets.

Interface

Field	What it does
Static Mesh	The mesh to decompose
Analyze Components button	Walks the topology, identifies connected components
Isolate Selected button	Exports the selected component as a new Static Mesh
Components list	Per-component row: name, triangle count, vertex count

Workflow

1. Drop a Static Mesh, click Analyze Components
2. Review the list — a properly-modeled single object should be one component; multi-piece scans show multiple
3. Select the components you want to extract, click Isolate Selected
4. Each selected component is saved as a new Static Mesh asset

This is especially useful for kitbashed scans where multiple objects were captured in a single mesh.

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Tab 5 — Topology Analyzer

Inspects edge loops, hard edges, and topology poles. Includes a non-destructive edge-flow smoother.

Interface

Field	What it does	Default
Static Mesh	The mesh to analyze	(empty)
Hard Edge Angle	Dihedral angle threshold above which edges are considered “hard”	60°
Detect Edge Loops button	Analyzes for boundary loops, hard edge loops, and irregular-valence vertices
Apply Edge Flow button	Runs Laplacian smoothing while preserving hard edges. Creates a new _EdgeFlow asset (non-destructive).
Copy button	Plain-text dump of the topology report
Edge Loops list	Per-loop row: index, edge count, description

Workflow

1. Drop a mesh, set Hard Edge Angle to match your tolerance (30° for soft surfaces, 60° for typical mechanical edges, 90° for cube-like)
2. Click Detect Edge Loops — list populates with boundaries, hard edge loops, and pole vertices
3. If you want to clean up surface noise, click Apply Edge Flow — creates a new _EdgeFlow asset that you can compare against the original

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Settings reference

Tab	Field	Default
Remesh	Target Face Count	5000
Remesh	Voxel Resolution	128
Hole Fill	Hole Size Threshold	10.0
Hole Fill	Fill Strategy	Planar
Topology	Hard Edge Angle	60°

Settings are persisted to [Project]/Saved/EQLabs/Settings/ScanCleanupRemeshUtility.json.

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Output

• Non-destructive operations — Remesh and Apply Edge Flow create new assets named <Original>_Remesh and <Original>_EdgeFlow respectively
• In-place operations — Hole Fill, Self-Intersection Resolve, Component Isolation modify the source asset (or create new components for isolation)
• Undo — operations that modify the source mesh are wrapped in ScopedTransaction and reversible with Ctrl+Z
• Clipboard — Topology Analyzer has a Copy button for the topology report

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Tips & gotchas

• Voxelization in Remesh has a memory cost — Voxel Resolution: 256 on a large mesh can spike RAM. Start at 128, raise only if you need more detail.
• Hole Size Threshold has tricky semantics — it’s the maximum perimeter to fill. Set it high to fill big holes, set it low to only patch tiny gaps.
• Self-Intersection auto-resolve isn’t a magic wand — it cleans up obvious cases. Severe self-intersection means the input was bad and may need DCC-side cleanup.
• Component Isolation works on connected topology only — meshes that share UVs or materials but are topologically separate count as different components. Disconnected islands within a single material count as separate components.
• Edge Flow output is a separate asset — original is preserved. Compare in the Static Mesh editor before committing.
• All operations are single-mesh — no batch mode. For cleaning a folder of scans, run the tool repeatedly.

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Related tools

• LOD & Nanite Studio — for generating LODs after cleaning a mesh, or evaluating Nanite readiness
• UV & Texel Suite — UVs typically need to be regenerated after remeshing
• Mesh Intelligence Dashboard — find the high-tri scan candidates that need cleanup in the first place

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