IMP is a polygon and subdivision 3D modeling tool dedicated to the Mac OS X platform. It offers a comprehensive set of interactive tools that make the creation, transformation and editing of 3D models fun and easy. IMP has the ability to quickly switch between polygonal modeling and smooth organic subdivision surfaces which makes it a great starting point to quickly transform ideas into 3D models.
The uses of IMP are unlimited for a wide gamut of people and fields. Professionals can apply their ideas for video games, movies, art, design, architectures and planning while many may just want to create and learn 3D modeling. IMP has an uncomplicated nature making it easy to use and beneficial for users who need to apply 3D modeling without the hassle. Let your imagination run wild as you see your ideas come to life.
IMP employs an uncluttered user interface where a single or multiple viewports can be displayed at a time. Viewports provide the ability to interact with the 3D scene. Multiple viewports can be very helpful when modeling as they provide different views and cameras of the work area. Gestures among other ways can be used to navigate in the vieports.
Organic like modeling with smooth subdivision surfaces
At the core, IMP utilizes an advanced subdivision surface engine based on the popular Catmull-Clark technique. Subdivision surfaces are polygon surfaces generated through an iterative process that smooths the mesh while increasing its density. Complex smooth surfaces can be derived in a reasonably predictable way from relatively simple objects. Subdivision surface modeling is the most common modeling technique used today because of the ability to control a high resolution organic looking model by a coarse low polygon object.
Subdivision is applied in levels. At higher levels the surface looks smoother but the polygon and point count increase with it. Each object in IMP can have up to 6 levels of subdivision applied at anytime. Increasing or decreasing subdivision levels is as easy as hitting the - or + keys on the keyboard or within the user interface. It's very common to gradually switch in and out of subdivision, while checking how changes look on the coarse or the subdivided object as you go.
Intuitive, interactive and fully customizable tools
IMP is equipped with a variety of familiar tools. Tools are used to create, deform or extend the geometry or surface of a model. Most of the tools can be applied interactively with the mouse or with more precision and options through the numeric editor panel. For example, tools that create geometric primitives have additional options in the numeric editor in order to control the number of segments or sides which is very useful for box modeling.
Most tools in IMP affect the current active selection mode. From simple deformations such as move, rotate, scale or bend to more complex like extrude, bevel, mirror or connect will affect anything selected. There are three selection modes: Points, Edges and Polygons. There is always one selection mode active even when using some tool other then the selection tool. In fact the active selection mode is used at the very core of IMP to know what to affect when applying an action. Most actions will treat an empty selection as if everything was selected.
Easy material creation and control along with powerful texture mapping and mesh unwrapping
IMP makes it effortless to create, assign and edit materials. Each material can be manipulated interactively while there are up to four channels where textures can be applied. Every mesh can be unwrapped with an intelligent LSCM/ABF++ mesh parameterization engine. The UV coordinates can be manipulated through the UV viewport with common tools such as move, rotate and scale. Quickly select edges where you would want seams to occur and let the internal unwrapper create a two dimensional representation of your model where textures can be easily applied.
