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Editable Mesh (Face/Polygon/Element) 1001
viewports have invisible camera planes.) In these
cases, the selection of edges is not translated but
only rotated.
Grid Align—Alig ns the selected edges to the current
construction plane. The current plane is specified
by the active viewport in the case of the home grid.
When using a grid object, the current plane is the
active grid object.
Mak e Planar—Forces all selected edges to become
coplanar. The plane’s normal is the average surface
normal of all faces attached to the selected edges.
Collapse—Collapses selected edges by welding
the vertex at one end of each selected edge to the
vertex at the other end.
Sur face Proper tie s rollout
These controls affect the visibility of the edges.
Invisible edges (also called construction lines)
appear in the viewports when Edges Only is turned
off in the Display command panel, or when you’re
editing at the Edge sub-object level. The visibility
of edges is primarily of importance when an object
is being rendered using a wireframe material.
Visible—Makes selected edges v isible.
Invisible—Makes selected edges invisible, so they
won’t be displayed in Edges Only mode.
Auto Edge group
Auto Edge—Automatically determines edge
v isibilit y based on the angle between the faces that
sharetheedge,withtheanglesetbytheThreshold
spinner to its right.
ClickingAutoEdgecanhaveoneofthreeeffects,
dependingonwhichradiobuttonisactive(Set
means to make an invisible edge visible; Clear
meanstomakeavisibleedgeinvisible):
•
Set and Clear Edge V is—Ca n change the
visibility of all selected edges depending on the
Threshold setting.
•
Set—Makes previously invisible edges visible
only if they exceed the Threshold sett ing; does
not clear any edges.
•
Cle ar—Makes previously visible edges invisible
only if they are less t han the Threshold setting;
does not make any edges visible.
Editable M esh (Face/Polygon/
Element)
Select an editable mesh object. > Modify panel >
Selection rollout > Face/Polygon/Element
Select an editable mesh object. > Modify panel >
Modifier Stack display > Editable Mesh rollout >
Fa ce/Polygon/Element
Selec t an editable mesh object. > Quad menu > Tools 1
quadrant > Face/Polygon/Element
A face isthesmallestpossiblemeshobject: a
triangle formed by three vertices. Faces provide
the renderable surface of an object. While a vertex
can exist as an isolated point in space, a face cannot
exist without vertices.
At the Editable Mesh (Face) level, you can select
single and multiple faces and transform them
using standard met ho ds. This is also true for the
Polygon and Element sub-object levels; for the
distinctions between face, polygon, and element,
see
Editable Mesh > Selection rollout (page
1–986)
. This topic covers the Edit Geometry