Doc:Manual/Modelling/Surfaces/Editing

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[edit] Adding or Extruding

[edit] Description

Once the tool is activated the extrusion happens immediately and you are placed into Grab mode, ready to drag the new extruded surface to its destination.

[edit] Examples

Images (Selecting control-point) to (Complete) show a typical extrusion along the side of a surface.

In (Selecting control-point) and (Shift-R), a row of control-points were highlighted by selecting a single control-point, labelled “C”, and then using the handy row select tool (⇧ ShiftR) to select the rest of the control-points.

Selecting control-point.

Shift-R.

The edge is then extruded using the E as shown in (Extruding). Notice how the mesh has bunched up next to the highlighted edge; the area in question is highlighted in a light-grey circular area. That is because the new extruded surface section is bunched up there as well.

Extruding.

Complete.

By moving the new section away from the area the surface begins to “unbunch”, as shown in (Complete). The direction of movement is marked with a white arrow, labelled “E”, and the new section is labelled “S”.

You can continue this process of extruding – or adding – new surface sections until you have reached the final shape for your model.

[edit] Cycling (Opening and Closing)

[edit] Description

Cycling a surface is similar to Opening and Closing a NURBS curve except that a surface has an inside and outside surface.

To cycle a surface use C and choose either cyclic U or cyclic V from the Toggle menu. The surface’s outer edges will join together to form a “closed” surface.

Attempting to cycle a non-outer edge will result in nothing happening.

[edit] Deleteing/Erasing surfaces

[edit] Description

Deleting requires that all control-points along an interpolation axis are highlighted.

[edit] Hints

A handy Hotkey (⇧ ShiftR) is provided that makes it easier to select all the control-points along an axis. Just highlight a control-point(s) and use ⇧ ShiftR to toggle between the two interpolation axes that intersect the last control-point selected.

Before.

After.

In (Before) a row of control-points have been selected by initially selecting the control-point labelled “A” and using ⇧ ShiftR to select the remaining control-points. Then, using the Erase menu (X), the selected row of control-points is erased resulting in (After).

[edit] Joining or Merging two surfaces

[edit] Description

Just like NURBS Curves, Joining requires that a single edge, a row of control-points, from two separate surfaces are selected. This means that the surfaces must be part of the same object. For example, you can’t join two surfaces while in Object mode. Joining can only take place while in Edit mode which requires that both surfaces be part of the same object.

[edit] Examples

(Joining ready) is an example of two NURBS Surface curves, not NURBS curves, in Edit mode ready to be joined. (Joining complete) is the result of joining the two curves.

Joining ready.

Joining complete.

[edit] Hints

If not enough surfaces are selected then you will get an error message stating “Too few selections to merge”.

Most of the time the Join tool will try its best to join the two surfaces based on the selected edges from those surfaces. But there are times when joining doesn’t happen. Generally this occurs when the selected control-points are not completely describing the edge/row that you want to join. Select more control-points until the edge is completely highlighted.

Note that the edges do not have to be outside edges. You can join inside edges, although this is not typically done.