This function smooths rough surfaces and rounds off sharp edges. It can be found in the Extras menu in the Mesh manipulation.
When you start the function, the Smoothing frame will appear in the lower right corner where you can determine the strength of the smoothing. An iteration means how often you want to repeat the smoothing process. With every iteration, the following process takes place: For each corner point of the triangle mesh, the average position of the adjacent corner points is calculated. The position of the first corner point is then adjusted to this average value. That way, surfaces become smoother and corners and sharp edges of objects become rounder and are pulled inwards.
Prevent shrinking: The part will be deformed but the volume won't get any smaller.
Independent of triangulation: The smoothing doesn't happen on the basis of the triangle mesh but of the actual part shape. This way, you hardly get any deformation effect. Striking edges will be retained, less rough surfaces will be smoothed. To have a more regular triangle mesh and improve smoothing, you can refine the mesh and reduce the maximum edge length. Show a preview of the smoothing by clicking Calculate and if you want to get back to the original mesh, click Reset.
In the Display options you can make the mesh visible (Show triangles) and by clicking and holding the Show original mesh button you'll get to review the triangulation before you smoothed it. With a check in the Auto update-box, all the changes you make will be displayed on the model immediately. This is very useful for checking the new mesh with every change, but can lead to long calculation times when working with complex files. If you always want to use the same reduction settings on all your models, click on Save settings to make them available later. Apply your calculations by clicking OK.