Tom Austin wrote:
> 
> a possible final result is a mesh
> 
> I may use an AutoCAD 3D solid or just the simplified points themselves.
> 
> I am still interested in what may work on meshes as opposed to points as 
> the final product may be a mesh.
> 

It will almost certainly be simpler to avoid attempting to reconstruct a 
mesh unless you want to use some third-party software or you have a lot 
of time to work on it (which as I understand you don't).  Fortunately 
there is some free software you can try. Although I've never used any 
myself and haven't looked into the licensing requirements I suspect most 
are only available for personal use.

This one is pretty recent, and should be able to handle large number of 
points pretty efficiently:

http://students.cs.tamu.edu/jmanson/programs_wavelet_reconstruct.html


This one is based on some relatively recent work from from MSR and 
should also be able to manage large numbers of points:

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/hoppe/proj/mlstream/


The software here is a bit older but might be useful (links at bottom of 
page):

http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/scanning/


> 
> That's some of what I've been thinking about - simplifying where 
> possible, and providing some more detail where the *object* is more 
> complex.
> 
> I would like to figure out a relatively simple method of simplifying the 
> mesh so that the actual work involved is low - even if processing time 
> is high.

The conceptually simplest way to do this would be to generate a 
high-detail mesh from the points and then simplify the mesh, so if you 
can get a third-party mesh reconstruction algorithm to work that's a 
good possibility.

I'll still see if I can think of a good mesh-free simplification 
algorithm in case you can't generate a mesh.

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