-----------------------------------------------------------------------
		     QSlim Surface Simplification
			     Version 2.0
			    March 17, 1999

		 Michael Garland <garland@cs.cmu.edu>


 Copyright (C) 1998 Michael Garland.  See "COPYING.txt" for details.


 For the latest version and up-to-date information, please visit
 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~garland/quadrics/qslim.html


 Michael Garland
 Computer Science Department
 Carnegie Mellon University
 5000 Forbes Avenue
 Pittsburgh, PA 15213

------------------------------------------------------------------------


This is version 2.0 of my QSlim surface simplification package.  The
underlying quadric-based simplification algorithm is largely the same
as that used in QSlim 1.0.  However, the software itself has been
almost totally rewritten.  Compared to QSlim 1.0, this version has the
following notable features:

	- Consumes substantially less memory
	- Generally faster
	- Some preliminary support for surfaces with attributes
	- Interactive version compiles under both X11 and Win32


RUNNING QSLIM
-------------

The standard QSlim executable is a non-interactive program called
'qslim' which you invoke using a command of the form:

	qslim <options> <filename>

This will input the initial model from the specified file and simplify
it.  When simplification is complete, it will output the resulting
model and report to you how long the process took.

The command line options recognized by QSlim are:


  Controlling output:

	-t <n>

		Specify the desired number of faces in the simplified
		model.  You are not guaranteed to get exactly the
		number you ask for, but it should generally be within
		1-2 faces of the target.

	-o <file>

		Output resulting model to the named file.  By default,
		the simplified model is sent to standard output.

	-M <format>

		Select the format for the output model.  The supported
		formats are:

		   smf -- This is the default format
		   iv  -- Inventor format (preliminary support only)
		   vrml -- VRML 1.0 format (preliminary support only)

		   pm, mmf, log -- These are formats which I developed
		   for experimenting with multiresolution
		   representations.  They're not documented because
		   they're not well supported and I may substantially
		   alter the format of these files in the future.

	-q

		Run quietly.  QSlim will not output the usual status
		information.


  Customizing simplification:

	-O <n>

		Specify the policy for selecting the target position
		for edge contractions.  The following levels of
		optimization are available:

			3 -- Pick point which minimizes error [default].
			2 -- Pick best point along edge.
			1 -- Pick best of endpoints or midpoint.
			0 -- Pick best of the two endpoints.

	-B <weight>

		Specifies the weight assigned to boundary constraint
		planes.  The default value is currently 1000.  Specify
		a weight of 0 to disable boundary constraints entirely.

	-W <n>

		Select the quadric weighting policy.  Available policies
		are:

			0 -- Weight all quadrics uniformly
			1 -- Weight by area of contributing triangle [default]
			2 -- Weight by angle around vertex


  Miscellaneous features:

	-r

		Enable history recording.  This is not terribly useful
		in the command-line version.  However, in the
		interactive version (see below) this will enable you
		to simplify a model and then back up to a previous
		level of detail.  NOTE:  This will cause the program
		to use more memory.

	-j

		Only perform contractions that do not remove any
		faces.  You can use this feature in conjunction with
		custom edge sets (see below) to effect a form of
		stitching.  This is not terribly reliable, it's just
		an experimental feature.

	-F

		This will cause the simplification algorithm to use
		iterative face contraction rather than iterative edge
		contraction.  Generally speaking, this has the
		following effects:

			- Simplification is faster
			- Less memory is consumed
			- Geometric quality of the results is reduced


	-I <file>

		Include a script file.  I've been toying around with
		adding some simple scripting support to QSlim using
		the MxAsp MixKit package.  Currently, there is nothing
		useful to do with this, but there may be in the
		future.