Thickness (Polygon Meshes)
Creates thickness for the faces of one or more selected polygon meshes. Unlike Offset, this tool creates faces with thickness for the selected polygon mesh after flipping and unifying the normals and deleting the original face, as necessary. Thickness can be added outwards or inwards from the surface, or in both directions. It can also be automatically generated.
Usage
Select one or more polygon meshes to add thickness to. In Object Mode, thickness will be added to all the faces. In Modify Mode, only the selected faces will get thickness.
- Select the polygon mesh you wish to add thickness to.
- From the Toolbox, select Modify > Mesh > Thickness.
- Adjust the settings in Tool Parameters as needed.
- Click and drag vertically in the Figure Window, or enter a value for Distance in the Tool Parameters, to create the thickness.
- Click Apply or press the Return key to finalize the thickness.
Thickness Parameters
- Distance
- Sets the size of the thickness (distance measured from the original face).
- Direction
- Select Inwards, Outwards, or In Both Directions for the side on which to add thickness.
- Inwards
- Adds thickness to the inside (back) of the selected faces. Drag down in the Figure Window while the Thickness tool is selected to add thickness to the inside.
- Outwards
- Adds thickness to the outside (front) of the selected faces. Drag up in the Figure Window while the Thickness tool is selected to add thickness to the outside.
Caution The original faces will be flipped.
- In Both Directions
- Thickness is added to both the inner and outer sides of the selected faces. If Distance is specified as 200, the total thickness will be 400. If this option is selected, the original faces will be deleted.
- Side Faces
- Creates faces on the sides between the projected face and original face. If unselected faces are adjacent to the selected faces, side faces are not created. This is to avoid edges shared by multiple faces.
- Distance From Vertex
- The distance is measured from the vertices in the direction of the normals.
- When disabled, the distance is measured from each face in the direction of the normals.
- Apply
- Applies the thickness and completes the operation.
Note When clicking and dragging in the Figure Window to create Thickness, negative Distance values will switch from outer to inner thickness or vice versa.
Notes & Precautions
- If nonselected faces are adjacent to the selected faces, side faces are not created even if the Side Faces option is selected. This is to avoid edges shared by multiple faces.
- If the Distance is set to 0, thickness is not added, so as to avoid overlapping faces.