In translucent optical networks the physical layer impairments degrading the optical signal are considered in the network design. In this paper we investigate the offline problem of Routing and Wavelength Assignment (RWA) and Regenerator Placement (RP) in translucent networks. Given a network topology, an estimation of the traffic demands, the objective is to minimize the cost of the regeneration equipment used, and to avoid the lightpath blocking. We formulate an optimal ILP model of the problem, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time in the literature. Its simplicity allows us to test it for small and medium size networks. Despite of this merit, the problem is NP-hard. For larger problem instances we propose two heuristic methods: Lightpath Segmentation and 3-Step method. The latter guarantees that no lightpath blocking is produced by signal degradation. We also provide a lower bound for the regenerator equipment cost. The performance and the scalability of our proposals are then investigated by carrying out extensive tests, considering different network topologies, number of wavelengths per fiber, traffic load conditions and network link lengths. Results reveal that the solutions obtained by the heuristic algorithms are optimal or close-to-optimal and require low computation times. In addition, the results help to capture the trends in the regenerator equipment cost in different network instances.