I own and use 3DCoat since version 3. Currently using version 4.7. I love 3DC. It's awesome and very easy to use for UV Mapping, texturing, painting and sculpting. Well worth the money. BUT I hate manual retopoing.

Can't stand the process and I find the task in 3DC not enjoyable. Too tedious and too long of a process for me to retopo a model I will only use once or twice in a Vue render or use as a paintover in Photoshop/Painter/ArtRage.

I used the free tool Instant Meshes and with a click of a button a model is retopologized in a few minutes compared to 3DC's auto retopo which on certain models could take a couple of hours. But Instant Meshes is hit or mess. So is 3DC's auto retopo.

I've read and watched videos of Topogun and it seems interesting and cheap.

I know Blender has retopo tools, but sorry I'm not a Blender user.

For the time being I am using 3DC to decimate my 3DC sculpts.

Anyone have any thoughts, tips or recommendations?

And I would appreciate it if people do not post trying to convince me Blender is the answer. Sorry not wanting to be rude, but I have little interest in Blender...

Zremesher is without a doubt the best automatic retopology algorithm I've tried so far, and yes I've used Instant Meshes interactive field alignment algorithm and 3dCoat's AutoTopo as well. Both of those are fine in their own right, but Zbrush's method and double algorithms are much more precise and result in a much cleaner topology which can actually be used on its own in production for non-animated objects, unlike some of the results from Instant Meshes. Of course, there is no automatic retopology process which will be perfect in the end. There is no way to automatically retopologize a mesh and expect results to be as good as manual retopology by someone who knows what they're doing. However, in terms of a clean, usable result with only minor issues in edge flow, Zbrush wins that comparison hands down as long as the result is a static object.

Topogun does not have automatic retopology features as far as I am aware. It is an older, although more cost effective, solution to manual retopology. Please do not hesitate to correct me with some links to show the automatic retopology examples in Topogun if I am wrong in that observation.

I am curious when you say that the AutoTopo feature in 3dCoat is taking hours for you, though. I know it's not as fast as Zremesher or Instant Meshes in some cases, but I've never seen it take longer than maybe 5 minutes on even the most challenging mesh. I wonder why it's behaving that way for you?

I watched an impressive video on using poly groups in ZBrush to remesh some CAD objects. Honestly though, when I just want to get a good render and really don't care about having the mesh for other uses, it seems like a lot of work. I can't justify the time for that. I don't mind some triangles, I would not complain if the mesh was all triangles, as long as it renders good.

At least for my application starting with the best mesh output from CAD seems to be the key. If Moi's output is consistently as good as I have seen I'll have to pick up a license.

The Zremesher tool in Zbrush is a one-click auto-retopology process. It will create new quad geometry on a dense mesh automatically. Very simple and fast algorithm.

Here's a good representation of the what the tool can be useful for. It provides very good, usable results in one click. However, it can never substitute good manual retopology.

I have tried ZRemesher, and its prone to producing artifacts with meshes from CAD, which I don't think is the fault of the algorithm. CAD meshers in general don't care about producing sliver like triangles. The meshes are typically intended for 3D printing and generally these sliver triangles don't present an issue there. It's possible the polygroup retopo method would still have issues with these triangles.

Its possible the issue is with normals, although I would need to look at it further. The difference between facet normals and vertex normals could be relevant. Perhaps the issue is not so much with the proportion of the triangle, but how the normal is calculated for that triangle. In the end I don't really care whether its a geometry issue or a normal issue. I just want a nice render that doesn't cost me a lot of time to remesh/retopo.

I watched both of those videos Luxxeon, Thanks.

The Projection method might have some potential, have to give that a try.

I use Shade3D. I has a retopology function as well. Does what it has to do.

The Zremesher is most useful when retopologizing objects of densely packed Delaunay triangulation or quad surface structure, typically after the sculpting process . Long thin triangles created from CAD applications, such as those associated with Sketchup, will usually present problem for any automated quadrangular mesh algorithm for exactly the reasons you've indicated, among other things. There just isn't enough surface information in such models for the algorithm to work properly. Using "guide splines" on the surface of the model before launching the tool can help the algorithm solve itself sometimes, but that is often not enough in itself to keep the result from being 100 percent efficient. Some form of manual editing will almost always be necessary after the automation is complete.

Personally, I almost always model from scratch using standard polygonal techniques and subdivision methods to avoid this problem down the road when working with hard surface objects. When it comes to sculpting detail in organic objects, I will usually do retopology manually as well. I actually enjoy the process of retopology, and find the tools relatively fast and efficient in packages like 3dcoat or 3dsmax, etc. In the rare case when I might do an automated retopo project, it's usually only on models where detailed sculpting has pushed the polygon count up into the astronomical range, and redistribution to a render or animation pipeline would be far too inefficient. In such cases, the objective right from the start is to sculpt fine detail in Zbrush or 3dCoat in order to extract nomal maps or other PBR maps to use on a low-resolution static base mesh anyway, so edge flow really doesn't matter.

infinity10 posted at 9:11AM Thu, 08 June 2017 - #4307010

I use Shade3D. I has a retopology function as well. Does what it has to do.

Is it automatic or manual retopology?

Modo has automatic rettopology since version 10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IPmzasXj2A

SinnerSaint posted at 2:26PM Fri, 09 June 2017 - #4307082

Modo has automatic rettopology since version 10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IPmzasXj2A

That's the 10.2 update, but interesting nontheless. Their solution actually seems comparable to Instant Meshes, and may actually be using the same fields alignment routines as a basis for the tool. In fact, I'm sure all of the automatic retopology processes out there are based on relatively similar processes, with the exception of 3DCoat's old quad output algorithm, which they have since made obsolete in their later AutoTopo feature.

Just for fun, I decided to run a test of my own in Zbrush using the ZRemesher algorithm. Note that there are actually two distinct algorithms for ZRemesher, the second of which can be accessed simply by holding down the ALT button on the keyboard when you click the UI button to engage the tool. This test simply uses the standard automatic retopology method. The only changes I made from the default values was that I set the Target Polygons Count from the default 5 value, down to 2. All other settings in the tool remained at the default.

Here is a screencap of the ORIGINAL geometry exported from 3dCoat to Zbrush from the Voxel sculpt. No, the object is not black, it's actually the red clay material which is default in Zbrush, but the polygon count is so high the polyframe view (wireframe edges) make the object appear solid black. There are over 4 million triangles in this object.

And here is the object after automatic retopology in ZRemesher. It now contains only 27,000 quad polygons. That's a reduction of around 675%. The process took about 12 minutes on my i7-7700HQ CPU running at 2.8GHz.

Here now is the Instant Meshes results on the exact same high poly object as shown above. I did not adjust any settings in the IM software besides reducing the desired poly count to around 29,000. The exported mesh here is not entirely quadrangular. The export resulted in just under 29,000 polygons but there were also ngons in the result. Subdividing this, of course, would solve that but I'm not entirely sure why the software couldn't come up with a pure quad mesh like ZRemesher did. The calculations here though were faster than ZRemesher. This result took less than 3 minutes on the same machine as above.

Personally, I would not be satisfied to use this output in production straight away. I would have to either edit the results manually to fix the ngons, or subdivide the object to attain pure quad topology.

Yep, when you really look at the zbrush output compared to the other one, it looks a lot cleaner. Thanks for posting your tests! I would be curious what the 3dcoat output looks like on that same model.

Here you go. I could not get 3dCoat's new AutoTopo algorithm to work properly on this particular model out of the box with default settings. Even changing a few parameters did not work out. So, I had to resort to using the Old-Style Quadrangulation method, and this is the results of that procedure. Same model as the others. Time to complete in this case was around 2 minutes, which is faster than either of the previous tests. However, I'm not happy with the results here for various reasons. The model is not all quads. We have 21 triangles, 127,968 quads, and 2 ngons.

So, to sum up the testing in all three auto retopology applications:

Zbrush with ZRemesher: 12 minutes to complete, 27,000 polygons, all quads, clean usable mesh.

Instant Meshes: Less than 3 minutes to complete, 29.000 polygons, mostly quads with several ngons, usable with subdivision or manual cleanup.

3dCoat with Old Style Quadrangulation: Less than 2 minutes to complete, 21 triangles, 127,968 quads, and 2 ngons, I wouldn't use this mesh in production.

Mileage will vary, but there you have it. If anyone has any other automatic topology applications they would like to try on the same model, let me know. I don't have access to any other automatic topology tools at the moment. I don't think Blender has an automated retopo feature currently. Blender uses semi-automated techniques with the grease pencil tool, but that's not the same. The only other tool I know of is this one:

http://igl.ethz.ch/projects/sketch-retopo

However, that is not fully automated retopology either as far as I can tell. Also, it seems to require compiling?

Edit: If you download the source code of the Sketch Retopo project I'm linking to above, there is a binary installation file in the zip. Just in case anyone wanted to try that software out.

I find 3DCoat's auto retopo takes a long time. Sometimes even over an hour.

How many polys in the model you are starting with?

1 to 2 million. I love 3DCoat but not for retopo work.

3dCoat's AutoTopo tool requires you to use symmetry to help the process along. I tried this with my test model, but it was still unsuccessful with default settings so I had to use the old style quadrangulation. My question to kenmo would be what are your computer specs? I found 3dCoat's algorithm to be the fastest of the 3 I tested on the same model, same machine, with default settings for each. The difference is that 3dCoat could not successfully resolve the object type I used for some reason with the newer algorithm.

3D-Coat's autotopo has worked fine for me in the past. I haven't tried it with the latest beta though. I don't recall it ever taking longer than a minute to do its thing.

I7-4770 with 32 gbs of DDR3 memory and GTX 750ti 4gb. Windows Home 10 64 bit. Bootup drive is a Samsung 500gb SSD. Has multiple mechanical drives for data (Sata2, Sata3 & USB 3.0).

I've also tried the same auto retopo on my i5-2500K with 16 gbs and the process is the same. Very slow. Anyone interested can download my free Gunship model here at Renderosity and try an auto retopo on it... It's a very dense model. I gave up on an auto retopo and uploaded the sense model here....

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/pain-merchant/70418

Blender has a remesh function but mangles the normals on many of the new polys, and the Octree (comparable to # of subdivisions) has to be set very high which generates an excessive # of polys just to get something that looks like what you started with. There does not seem to be any adaptive subdivision.

kenmo posted at 12:05PM Wed, 14 June 2017 - #4307456

I7-4770 with 32 gbs of DDR3 memory and GTX 750ti 4gb. Windows Home 10 64 bit. Bootup drive is a Samsung 500gb SSD. Has multiple mechanical drives for data (Sata2, Sata3 & USB 3.0).

I've also tried the same auto retopo on my i5-2500K with 16 gbs and the process is the same. Very slow. Anyone interested can download my free Gunship model here at Renderosity and try an auto retopo on it... It's a very dense model. I gave up on an auto retopo and uploaded the sense model here....

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/pain-merchant/70418

I assume you are not attempting to retopo this model as one single piece?

cjd posted at 9:54AM Wed, 14 June 2017 - #4307458

Blender has a remesh function but mangles the normals on many of the new polys, and the Octree (comparable to # of subdivisions) has to be set very high which generates an excessive # of polys just to get something that looks like what you started with. There does not seem to be any adaptive subdivision.

I'll import a mesh (with bad normals) into Hexagon and unify everything. Then export to Carrara to crease whatever edges need to be creased. I think 3D-Coat works much better if models have creases to help its UV mapping calculations.

When using AutoTopo in 3dCoat, it is strongly suggested you enable symmetry even if the model does not have perfect symmetry. Using symmetry will help reduce the calculations required by the algorithm to manageable levels on most objects. However, this did not help in the case of my test object. The AutoTopo took approximately 2 minutes, but the results were mangled and completely useless rats nest geometry. I'm sure had i incorporated some guide splines and density preferences I could have solved this issue, but that wasn't the point of the testing here.

Kenmo, I downloaded your model to have a look. The ship contains many small, intricate pieces which should be separated and re-topologized on their own as individual models, then combined with the main part of the model later. This is probably why AutoTopo calculation is taking so long for you in this case. Frankly, I'm surprised it's able to give you a result at all considering all of the smaller detailed parts on the model.

kenmo posted at 2:38PM Wed, 14 June 2017 - #4307456

I7-4770 with 32 gbs of DDR3 memory and GTX 750ti 4gb. Windows Home 10 64 bit. Bootup drive is a Samsung 500gb SSD. Has multiple mechanical drives for data (Sata2, Sata3 & USB 3.0).

I've also tried the same auto retopo on my i5-2500K with 16 gbs and the process is the same. Very slow. Anyone interested can download my free Gunship model here at Renderosity and try an auto retopo on it... It's a very dense model. I gave up on an auto retopo and uploaded the sense model here....

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/pain-merchant/70418

Having issues loading that OBJ into anything. I've never used DAZ Studio. So don't know what kind of OBJs it outputs. 94MB seems a bit much for a ship like this.

Shawn, I took a look at the ship and I can see what the problem is there. Kenmo's model contains a massive 1.7 million polygons. That's a huge number of polygons for most people running average hardware to load in most enthusiast level 3d software. Although it is a very nice looking model with a great design, the object will, unfortunately, be far too heavy for most average users. Also, I think the reason it was taking so long to retopo is that it contains a number of very small subobjects and greebles, which should all be retopologized separately, then merged together afterward with the main part of the model. This would allow you to retopologize much more efficiently.

@Shawn

I hadn't considered Hexagon ... although I have used it to unify/flip normals. I was under the impression Hex was pretty limited when it comes to any normal adjustment beyond unitfy and flip. It can't smooth normals and/or crease edges.

OK, I see you use Carrara for crease edges.

You can crease edges in Hexagon 2.x. But 2.x has so many bugs, it's a joke to use that version for anything. Hexagon 1.21 has zero edge-creasing ability.

There's a couple types of normals with polygons. Their facings (when their normals are flipped), and their phong shading (used for normal mapping). I use Hexagon 1.21 to fix both types. I then import the model into 3D-Coat to do UV mapping.

I've loaded my model into Hexagon 3D 2.5 and into Vue Complete but does it ever weigh down my system...

kenmo posted at 1:59PM Thu, 15 June 2017 - #4307526

I've loaded my model into Hexagon 3D 2.5 and into Vue Complete but does it ever weigh down my system...

I think anyone running under 16gb of system ram with memory intensive applications would have a difficult time loading or working with your model in a scene. It is a very nice model, but it could definitely use a reduction in polygon count to be more useful to the average enthusiast. Again, I think the complexity and multiple small parts contained in the model can not expect to be retopologized automatically all at once. Breaking it down and retopologizing each part individually should prove much faster for you.

kenmo posted at 3:39AM Fri, 16 June 2017 - #4307526

I've loaded my model into Hexagon 3D 2.5 and into Vue Complete but does it ever weigh down my system...

What I would try doing is re-tessellate your ship (in whatever app you used to model it) to a lower-res poly-count. But then you probably wouldn't need to re-topo it, after doing that.

If you made this ship with voxels, just bust it apart and re-topo each part separately (again, in lower-res poly-count).

LuxXeon posted at 3:44AM Fri, 16 June 2017 - #4307569

I think anyone running under 16gb of system ram with memory intensive applications would have a difficult time loading or working with your model in a scene.

I have 32GB RAM. But my 64-bit apps have trouble with this model because of corruption, and vast data associated with each poly on this model. The poly count doesn't look that high. It's the kind of polys it's using that are jamming the works. Shader domains seem to conflict with object names that seem to conflict with material names. Then there's the OBJ export that has its own 10's of standards for its formatting.

I assume Kenmo still has the original model in its native format before any OBJ exporting was done with it, so that the ship can be easily saved.

ShawnDriscoll posted at 10:38AM Fri, 16 June 2017 - #4307632

The poly count doesn't look that high. It's the kind of polys it's using that are jamming the works.

You are right it's not 1.7 million. I'm not sure why Zbrush had reported that number. I opened it in 3dsmax, and here's the statistics.

It's over 882,000 polygons.

After inspecting the model in 3dsmax, I found a few surface incontinuities in the topology which could result in some issues when importing into certain software packages. There are some unwelded vertices and overlapping edges in this part of the model...

Easily fixed, but the complexity of the boolean stitched polygons has created a lot of triangles and ngons that would need to be fixed as well. The model imported just fine in 3dsmax, but there are some shading glitches because of the polygon problems that do also show up in the render.

The original base model was created in Groboto3D. Further parts and details in Hexagon3D 2.5 and Silo 3D ver 2. I used 3D Coat for texture painting but not for modeling. I did try retoping, both as a single object and then on individual parts. Retoping manually is too labor intensive for mespecially if I have to disassemble each part, retopo each part, then re-assemble.

I would much prefer a single click solution and that is the reason why Instant Meshes intrigued me.

I know there is a proper place for retoping manually...BUT... I only use my models once or twice in a Vue render or in a Photoshop/Painter/ArtRage paint over. I don't do animation...

I see the new beta of 3DC 4.7.29 has the option of retopo via decimation. Doesn't create pretty edge loops and such, but works for me...

Thanks for all the replies. Appreciate it...

kenmo posted at 6:14PM Sat, 17 June 2017 - #4307759

I see the new beta of 3DC 4.7.29 has the option of retopo via decimation. Doesn't create pretty edge loops and such, but works for me...

That sounds good, hopefully I can find a fast method to do that in ZBrush, will follow the tutorials Luxxeon linked to ...

cjd posted at 9:24PM Sat, 17 June 2017 - #4307775

kenmo posted at 6:14PM Sat, 17 June 2017 - #4307759

I see the new beta of 3DC 4.7.29 has the option of retopo via decimation. Doesn't create pretty edge loops and such, but works for me...

That sounds good, hopefully I can find a fast method to do that in ZBrush, will follow the tutorials Luxxeon linked to ...

I'll be coming out with my own personal workflow tutorial for using Zremesher as a "one click" solution on my Youtube channel in the near future as well. My techniques will cover using it as a quick retopo solution for relatively complex hard surface models, and how to get usable results with almost no manual input. Let me know if there's anything specific you'd like to see covered and I'll see if I can make it happen. Can't promise I'll have it by the end of the month as there are some other videos I'm currently working on, but hopefully you find it useful.

kenmo posted at 7:39PM Sat, 17 June 2017 - #4307759

The original base model was created in Groboto3D. Further parts and details in Hexagon3D 2.5 and Silo 3D ver 2. I used 3D Coat for texture painting but not for modeling. I did try retoping, both as a single object and then on individual parts. Retoping manually is too labor intensive for mespecially if I have to disassemble each part, retopo each part, then re-assemble.

I would much prefer a single click solution and that is the reason why Instant Meshes intrigued me.

I know there is a proper place for retoping manually...BUT... I only use my models once or twice in a Vue render or in a Photoshop/Painter/ArtRage paint over. I don't do animation...

I see the new beta of 3DC 4.7.29 has the option of retopo via decimation. Doesn't create pretty edge loops and such, but works for me...

Thanks for all the replies. Appreciate it...

I thought in 3D-Coat, you could import an OBJ mesh and convert it to voxel and then do autotopo on that? Manually doing retopo would defeat the purpose.

Luxxeon,

Maybe going through the ZBrush stuff on my own would answer this question for me; however, since you are asking, one area that might benefit from additional explanation is how to preserve hard edges/surfaces from the original topology.

cjd posted at 10:13AM Sun, 18 June 2017 - #4307806

Luxxeon,

Maybe going through the ZBrush stuff on my own would answer this question for me; however, since you are asking, one area that might benefit from additional explanation is how to preserve hard edges/surfaces from the original topology.

Zremesher does a good job at preserving hard edges if you define boundaries first using masking and polygroups on the model. You may need to dynamesh the model first. Perhaps this tutorial can provide some insight.

LuxXeon posted at 10:42AM Sun, 18 June 2017 - #4307808

.... if you define boundaries first using masking and polygroups on the model.

OK, I see identifying a crease angle to define the areas is possible. Still not exactly push button for something down and dirty, but workable. Thx

ShawnDriscoll posted at 12:52PM Sun, 18 June 2017 - #4307785

kenmo posted at 7:39PM Sat, 17 June 2017 - #4307759

The original base model was created in Groboto3D. Further parts and details in Hexagon3D 2.5 and Silo 3D ver 2. I used 3D Coat for texture painting but not for modeling. I did try retoping, both as a single object and then on individual parts. Retoping manually is too labor intensive for mespecially if I have to disassemble each part, retopo each part, then re-assemble.

I would much prefer a single click solution and that is the reason why Instant Meshes intrigued me.

I know there is a proper place for retoping manually...BUT... I only use my models once or twice in a Vue render or in a Photoshop/Painter/ArtRage paint over. I don't do animation...

I see the new beta of 3DC 4.7.29 has the option of retopo via decimation. Doesn't create pretty edge loops and such, but works for me...

Thanks for all the replies. Appreciate it...

I thought in 3D-Coat, you could import an OBJ mesh and convert it to voxel and then do autotopo on that? Manually doing retopo would defeat the purpose.

If you can, I'm not aware of this...

cjd posted at 12:57PM Sun, 18 June 2017 - #4307811

OK, I see identifying a crease angle to define the areas is possible. Still not exactly push button for something down and dirty, but workable. Thx

When working with hard surface models where keeping sharp creasing and boundaries is a must, then there will be several more steps involved. Still, it's far easier than manual retopology and the results can be very good. The problem with quadrangular output directly from a CAD application, without any retopo, is that the mesh is often way too dense and not easily unwrapped or editable beyond that point. There's also the occasional surface artifact caused by triangles or ngons that the applications tend to insert with their algorithms. At least in the case of Zremesher, using the added steps of manually identifying boundaries and hard edges, the output can be quite low poly by comparison, and usually the topology is all quads or close to all quads, allowing the user the ability to further edit the mesh or subdivide the mesh later on down the pipeline if the object is for vfx or cg rendering. If the end goal is 3d printing, then there is still the benefit of a lighter and cleaner topology which can be useful if you upload to an online printing service like Shapeways, or wish to redistribute the mesh as a STL for others to use. Good luck. I hope you find the results worth it.

kenmo posted at 1:06PM Sun, 18 June 2017 - #4307824

ShawnDriscoll posted at 12:52PM Sun, 18 June 2017 - #4307785

I thought in 3D-Coat, you could import an OBJ mesh and convert it to voxel and then do autotopo on that? Manually doing retopo would defeat the purpose.

If you can, I'm not aware of this...

Kenmo, the technique Shawn is referring to is actually the preferred workflow for the AutoTopo process in 3dCoat. It would require you to export your model in smaller chunks. For example, you already have the model broken down into material groups, so each group would represent its own mesh output. You would import each smaller piece as a voxel object (with heavy subdivision to maintain detail), then apply a symmetry plane and run the autotopo routine on that piece. Once complete, you can export the retopo object as OBJ, and reassemble the model using the low poly parts. If you do the process correctly, the low poly retopo mesh should import back into the original scene in the same exact location as the high poly original.

Sorry but I am not interested in disasembling and then re-assembling for retopologyzing. I find it very frustrating that the retopo process can take longer than the original modelling. I also find it too tedious and a waste of time to model a object a second time (retopologyzing).

There has to be a simple and easier process.

Cheers & many thanks...

kenmo posted at 4:50PM Sun, 18 June 2017 - #4307844

Sorry but I am not interested in disasembling and then re-assembling for retopologyzing. I find it very frustrating that the retopo process can take longer than the original modelling. I also find it too tedious and a waste of time to model a object a second time (retopologyzing).

There has to be a simple and easier process.

Cheers & many thanks...

I'm sorry, Kenmo. I feel perhaps I've misguided you with my own poorly worded overview of the process, and I may have left you with the impression that it's a lot of extra work. That really isn't the case at all. Yes, it does require a few extra steps (exporting and importing), but overall it's very simple and quick. Certainly not anywhere near the amount of time it would have taken you to model the object in the first place. However, if your current workflow and techniques are providing a satisfactory result, then that's all that really matters. As you mentioned, your models are really just intended for you, and used only in still image renders once or twice. So polygon counts and edge flows aren't really a concern in that case.

Keep up the good work. It's a very cool design by the way.

No, I fully understood your reply as I've been told the same on the 3DCoat forum and have tried that process... Sorry but 3D modeling is only a hobby and a manual retopo doubles my time to create an object. And not only that I HATE the manual retopo process. I love everything about modeling, except retopo. Since it's a hobby I would rather spend my time doing stuff I enjoy, photography, Photoshop, Painter, ArtRage or doing 3D modeling in Silo3D, Groboto3D or Hexagon3D. I love 3DCoat for texturing & UV mapping. BUT not retopo work...

I have Groboto. Never used it. Not intuitive for me. But I did make a similar hull shape like your ship has from NURBS. I exported as OBJ into 3D-Coat just now and imported it into the Sculpt area and converted it to voxels (it retained the shape of the NURBS object, including the tight edges). It took about 4 seconds to make a 1.5 million poly voxel object. I then did AUTOTOPO on it, choosing 40,000 quad polys (the default). Took about 2 seconds to do. Then there were some questions 3D-Coat asked me. I had no idea how to answer. Just clicked next next next. Then exported the model as OBJ. Perfect. It was also auto-UV mapped along the way. Didn't even notice that happen.

Groboto takes a while to get used to but once you do, it is quite easy. Sadly it looks like its gone the way of Beta video tapes, Studebaker autos and b&w televisions...