This software is cross platform, so you can integrate it into your work flow without worrying to much about your operating system (Linux, Mac, and Windows).
The first few times using the software, you may have a hard time getting what you want. That is mostly due to the slew of features, and slightly confusing interface.
Although the pbr view port looks great, it does come with the drawback that you will have to have support for open GL 3.30 or higher, and set it up before hand (if its not already set up on your computer).
This may not seem like much, but if your screen resolution is smaller than your picture, then you will only see a small part of the picture. And although you can move around the picture, it is impossible to zoom in and out.
No multi core, and only single core cpu usage, means that the software does not perform tasks at smooth speeds when textures get anywhere over 512x512 (depending on the cpu in use).
... Meaning you will always lose some quality. You can test this for yourself in real time by generating a height map from a normal, then clearing the normal and generating a new one based on height, then clearing the previous height map and generating a new one based on the new normal. Obviously, no one would do that, but it effectively demonstrates that Materialize, by its nature, sacrifices the accuracy that other programs can guarantee you.
Although the texture generation and preview is butter smooth, other GUI things, like image previews in the file browser cause huge slowdowns and jittering.
This is easily Materialize's biggest limitation. Even the most basic diffuse maps have more than two tones, so for the third tone and beyond, the height map generator just takes over the wheel and drives over a cliff.
This drawback means the program is only really helpful for basic, one- or two-tone materials like stone impressions, brick walls, simple fabric patterns, etc.
It also means the gloss/roughness generator is operating in completely the wrong frame of mind. If you have a material like tire rubber with sections that are muddy, wet, snow-crusted, blood splattered, etc. Materialize is only going to let you select two tones to make glossy or rough, and the other twelve are anybody's guess as to how reflective or absorbent they'll be.
While the software is great at what it does, it comes at a higher cost than most software that does similar things when it comes to generating normal maps.
As soon as I downloaded this for the first time and opened the file (which by the way was the free trial version) it said my trial was expired. So expect to pay upfront when downloading this app.
While this tool can generate normal maps, you can also create maps such as Height, Ambient Occlusion, Specular, and more. You can also input your own maps instead for preview.