Mesh Workbench: Difference between revisions

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(Updated the 'Preferences' paragraph.)
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The following preferences apply to the Mesh Workbench:
The following preferences apply to the Mesh Workbench:
* [[Image:Preferences-display.svg|32px]] [[Preferences_Editor#Display_settings|'''Display''' preferences]]: On the [[Preferences_Editor#Mesh_view|'''Mesh view''']] tab several preferences can be set.
* [[Image:Preferences-display.svg|32px]] [[Preferences_Editor#Display_settings|'''Display''' preferences]]: On the [[Preferences_Editor#Mesh_view|'''Mesh view''']] tab several preferences can be set.
* [[Image:Preferences-openscad.svg|32px]] [[OpenSCAD_Preferences|'''OpenSCAD''' preferences]]: The '''OpenSCAD executable''' preference is used by the [[Mesh_Union|Mesh Union]], [[Mesh_Intersection|Mesh Intersection]] and [[Mesh_Difference|Mesh Difference]] commands.
* [[Image:Preferences-openscad.svg|32px]] [[OpenSCAD_Preferences|'''OpenSCAD''' preferences]]: The [[Mesh_Union|Mesh Union]], [[Mesh_Intersection|Mesh Intersection]] and [[Mesh_Difference|Mesh Difference]] commands require OpenSCAD and use the '''OpenSCAD executable''' preference.


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Revision as of 14:12, 24 July 2020

Mesh workbench icon

Introduction

The Mesh Workbench handles triangle meshes. Meshes are a special type of 3D object, composed of triangular faces connected by their vertices and edges.

Many 3D applications, like Sketchup, Blender, Maya and 3D Studio Max, use meshes as their primary type of 3D object. Since meshes are very simple objects, containing only vertices (points), edges and triangular faces, they are very easy to create, modify, subdivide, stretch, and can easily be passed from one application to another without any loss of details. In addition, since meshes contain very simple data, 3D applications can usually manage very large quantities of them without using a lot of resources. For these reasons, meshes are often the 3D object type of choice for applications dealing with movies, animation, and image creation.

However, in the field of engineering meshes present one big limitation: they are only made of surfaces, and have no mass information, so they don't behave as solids. This means that all solid-based operations, such as addition or subtraction, are difficult to perform on meshes. The Mesh Workbench is useful to import 3D data in mesh format, to analyse it, detect errors, and finally convert it to a solid, for use with the Part Workbench.

Tools

All Mesh Workbench tools can be accessed from the Meshes menu. Some tools are also available in the Mesh tools toolbar.

  • Close hole: Fills selected holes in mesh objects.
  • Add triangle: Adds faces along a boundary of an open mesh object.
  • Boolean
    • Union: Creates a mesh object that is the union of two mesh objects.
    • Intersection: Creates a mesh object that is the intersection of two mesh objects.
    • Difference: Creates a mesh object that is the difference of two mesh objects.
  • Merge: Creates a mesh object by combining the meshes of two or more mesh objects.

Preferences

There are some export preferences related to Mesh Formats but these are not used by commands belonging to this workbench. They are used by the Std Export command.

The following preferences apply to the Mesh Workbench:

Notes