Understanding Mesh Features

Mesh features are stackable, repeatable transformations applied to a mesh both at design time and run-time.

With features, you can turn one board of wood into wall, cut a hole through a wall for a window, change the size of a window without altering the window frame, and make one pane of glass in a window into a multi-colored stained glass window. And each of these adjustments your customer can control during run time: they can adjust the length of the fence, the height of the window, or the colors of the stained glass.

Managing the features on a mesh

All features applied to a mesh are listed in the properties of that mesh. Select the mesh, so the properties list appears. Open the “Features” expander in the properties list.

• Create a feature by clicking New Feature. It will appear after any other features that already exist for this mesh.

• Create a feature before another feature in the stack by selecting that other feature, clicking the context menu next to its name, and selecting Add feature before...

• Re-order a feature in the stack by dragging it up or down in the stack. A highlight color appears above or below other features showing where this feature will move.

• Delete a feature by clicking the context menu next to the feature in the properties list, and selecting Remove.

• Collapse one or more features in the feature stack to make permanent changes to the mesh.

Understanding the Feature Stack

Since features modify the parent mesh, the order those features are listed in the stack makes a difference. For that reason, the “Features” tab is stacked in from top to bottom, showing the order they are applied to the mesh.

For example, consider a mesh with a feature stack of Move Vertices, then Mirror, then another Move Vertices.

1. First, move vertices is applied, so you’ll see the update in that original mesh.

2. Second, the mesh is mirrored, so you’ll see the results of the first move vertices feature in both the original mesh and its mirrored mesh.

3. Third, the other move vertices feature is applied after the mirror, so the effect is visible only to the mirrored mesh, not the original mesh.

Features can be dragged up and down the stack, to make their effect happen before or after other features.

Note that changing the order of features can substantially change the final result of the feature stack. In some cases, it can make the mesh unusable.

For example, consider a “transform geometry” feature before a “delete faces” feature. If the “delete faces” feature deletes geometry which is used in the “transform geometry” feature, then re-ordering these two features will cause the “transform geometry” feature to break, giving unexpected results.

Available features

Move Vertices Feature

Move Vertices can stretch and twist a portion of your mesh while leaving the rest untouched.

Weld Vertices Feature

The Weld Vertices feature helps to repair and simplify meshes by merging multiple vertices together.

Transform Geometry Feature

Transform Geometry can scale your mesh in a non-uniform fashion, stretching it along the X,Y, and Z axes independently.

UV Mapping Feature

UV Mapping lets you control how a 2D material is wrapped around or “projected” onto the surface of a 3D mesh.

Submesh Feature

The Submesh Feature allow multiple materials to be applied to different sets of faces on the same mesh.

Linear Pattern Feature

A Linear Pattern creates copies of the original mesh, placing each copy a certain translation away from the previous one along a straight line.

Circular Pattern Feature

A Circular Pattern creates copies of the original mesh, evenly distributing each copy and the space following it along a curved arc.

Geometry Join Feature

The Geometry Join Feature combines two separate meshes in a variety of ways.

Delete Faces Feature

The Delete Faces feature allows you to remove one or more faces from a mesh.

Slice Feature

Slice is used to modify geometry by removing unwanted pieces to create new and unique shapes.

Mirror Feature

The Mirror Feature can either move or clone a mesh relative to a plane, like an object reflected in a mirror.

Normal Smoothing Feature

The Normal Smoothing Feature improves the appearance of curved meshes by blending the way light reflects from its faces.

Displacement Map Feature

The Displacement Map feature can move many vertices within a mesh based on a bitmap.

Extrude Feature (Sketch Meshes only)

Extrude moves a sketch mesh along a straight line, allowing you to create complex linear shapes.

Sweep Feature (Sketch Meshes only)

Sweep moves a sketch mesh along the path of another sketch, allowing you to create complex shapes.