Non-AAQP (non-axis aligned quad projection) is a simple tool for projecting "square grid faces" on selected mesh, like a quad remesher.

It does not actually remesh the mesh. Instead, it just "projecting grids" on all faces, and then stitch the quads all together.
It is faster and workable on pure python code implementation, without the need of Native Binary.

It do not follow the shape of quad-flow, so the boundary may be a bit busy. It is the downside.
On the other hand, the quads in the center area are always clean, regular and same size. It is useful for physics simulation or deforming.

It can work on selected ngon faces. However, it will detach the faces from its original mesh.

Thanks to the stable stitching process, it does follow the curvature (to some degree). It can handle some simple Boolean-Cut meshes.

This tool can be considered as some kinds of "remesh tool" , however it does not replace geometries. So it the input mesh is full of "small triangles", it will not replace it by bigger faces. Use with caution.

Updates

Version 1.1.0

• Improved vertice stitching and result topology. Added more new settings !
• Added "Boundary check" option to avoid edges overlapping

Usage

Go to blender Edit mode, select faces of your mesh.
Right click inside the 3d viewport, then select Non-AAQP quad tool from the pop up Context Menu of blender.

You can open the setting menu from the left-bottom of the screen.

Here are some settings :

1. Segment size : the quad size
2. Rounded border : keep the blender's subdivision smoothed borders
3. Keep angle : this setting is used when "colinear stitching" is not checked. It is used for border vertex stitching (angle based).
   When the angle is 180, it will not do any vertex stitching and keep all original border (sharp).
4. Smooth angle : It control what faces are treated as smooth flat surface. If the angle between 2 faces normal is larger than this angle, then it is sharp border and not being smoothed.
5. Colinear stitching : this addon has 2 modes of border vertex stitching. By default it uses Colinear stitching (edge length based). If this option is unchecked, then it will use Angle based vertex stitching.
6. Boundary Check : when this option is checked, it will enforce strict border control and prevent overlapping edges and faces, but slower and not as beautiful as normally smoothed.
   

This tool is the accidental result of my effort for ngon-slicing tool development (for my paid-addon BetaQuad, DeltaQuad).

This is a free addon ! Hope that you found it useful !

X:

Kushiro (@kushirosea) / X

About the tool

"What is Non-AAQP (Non Axis Aligned Quad Projection) ? "

The concept is based on my another free addon "quad swords". It is a tool for slicing square grids / projecting quads on X, Y, Z axis. It does not care about the geometry and treat the mesh as a big rectangular box. It works on AABB (axis-aligned bounding boxes, a common 3d term to describe the big bounding box of an 3d object)

One day, I had an idea of "poor man retopology", that is simple : quad slicing a mesh, then fix all the concave face, then subdivision level 1. It worked !

It was a fast and simple retopology alternative. Not very accurate, but it may be useful for some situations.

Then i was thinking "what if we project the quads on top of each mesh surface, but not the global axis ?" .

I try to flatten the connected faces (within threshold angle) to form flat surfaces, and project quads on each surface. So it is the "Non-axis aligned" version.

But we have a problem. Since each surface has different grids projections, and the boundaries are processed independently, so the boundary has un-matched vertices (like a saw). Therefore, I developed some methods to "stitch" the boundary vertices together.

With some additional processing like smoothing and boundary geometry checking, it becomes this tool !