A mesh is often used to represent a part of your custom product. Made of points and lines in 3D space, the mesh can be simple like a box made of 8 points, or complex, like a machined part made of thousands of points.
Meshes are created from vertices (points) in the 3D space that are joined to create faces (flat 2D planes, usually in the shape of a triangle).
Creating a mesh
Create a simple mesh by opening the Meshes node in the Scene Explorer, clicking the more icon, selecting “Create Primitive”, and then selecting the type of mesh you want. It will appear at the scene origin.
Importing a mesh
Import existing complex designs as one or more meshes by clicking the Import icon in the toolbar, and uploading one of the following file types:
*.step *.stp *.fbx *.dae *.obj *.3ds *.glb
After uploading, an animation shows the file is being processed which may take a minute or two. You can leave this screen: the import happens on the server, so you won’t interupt it. Wait for the processing animation to finish, or save and reload your scene and return to this imports tab.
Managing mesh nodes
Click import next to any processed file, and you can select individual objects from the file you would like to import, ignore, or overwrite.
To manage your meshes, first find the mesh visually in the viewport or logically under the Meshes node of the scene explorer. Select the mesh, so it is highlighted in both the explorer and the viewport.
While one or more nodes are selected, with the keyboard you can…
Cut and Pastethe nodes with standard cut and paste keyboard commands. (usually CTRL-C and CTRL-V, respectively). Cut and paste works across scenes: you can copy multiple items from one scene to paste them into another. Note that only the nodes you’ve selected are copied: other nodes referenced by what you copy are not included. For example, if you copy a mesh node that has a join feature with another node, that other node is not included in the copy.
While one or more nodes are selected, in the explorerto the left you can…
Hide or show the mesh by clicking the visibility icon next to the mesh name.
Reorder the mesh (move it up or down in the tree of objects) by dragging it. You’ll see a highlight bar move as you drag, showing where the mesh will go when you drop it.
Reparent the mesh (place it within a group, or remove it from a group) by dragging it. You’ll see the mesh appear indented within a mesh group, or leave the group. When within a group, the mesh inherits some properties from that group.
While one or more nodes are selected in the explorer, use the context menu (the three-dots icon) or right-click an explorer node to see a pop-up menu. In this context menu you can…
- Duplicate the mesh by clicking the context menu next to the mesh name and then clicking Clone.
Delete it by clicking the context menu next to the mesh name and then clicking Delete.
Control mate behavior of the mesh by clicking the context menu next to the mesh name and then clicking Fix/Unfix. An anchor icon will appear next to the name, and the mesh will not move when mated with another mesh. Click the anchor again to unfix, so the mesh will move as necessary to complete the mate.
Find any code references to this mesh by clicking the context menu next to the mesh name and then clicking Search by reference. The search icon in the upper-right will show how many matching results are found in the scene. Click any result to jump to it. This is a handy way to ensure a mesh is unused before deleting it.
Center the mesh to the scene by clicking the context menu next to the mesh name and then clicking Center geometry to origin. This will move the mesh’s geometry such that the mesh origin is at the scene’s origin [0,0,0]. This is helpful with imported meshes, which may be placed in a strange location after import. Learn more about changing the origin of a mesh.
Export the mesh as an OBJ file.
See the mesh in the viewer by clicking Frame Node. This will not change the position of the mesh, but move the camera such that the mesh is centered in the middle of the screen.
Simplify a complex node tree by selecting two or more meshes in the node tree and then clicking Merge Selected Meshes. The geometries of the selected meshes will be unioned together into one mesh. This can be helpful after importing geometry that has a complex node tree of meshes which are visually important, but can be considered logically as one mesh. Simplifying the node tree speeds scene performance.
Mesh Properties
While a mesh node is selected, in the properties pane to the right you can adjust the mesh properties. Learn more.
Mesh Features
While a mesh node is selected, in the features pane to the right shown below the properties pane, you can adjust the mesh properties. Learn more.