Lecture Notes

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• Meshes
• Most of the operations utilizing meshes can be placed into three categories:
• 1) Transforming degenerate objects into those that can be utilized by Form· Z. Example: warped plain.
• 2) Creating complex forms that can represent intricate forms such as a site model.
• 3) Creating an object that is easily manipulatable by moving or disturbing points and/or segments of a meshed object.
• Four simple operations regarding meshes.
• Plain mesh tool-applies a mesh over a plane or object at a given mesh density.
• Smooth mesh:
• Quadratic subdivision tool-changes resolution of an object by subdividing its faces. This is done by splitting each face with lines that start at its center and end at the midpoints of its boundary edges.
• Triangular Subdivisions tool-can be used to increase the resolution of an object by subdividing its triangular faces, by connecting the midpoints of each edge of a triangular face resulting into four new faces.
• Reduce mesh tool-used to reduce the number of faces of an object, by merging adjacent faces which enclose an angle which are less than a specified threshold angle. It can also be used to reduce the number of segments in a face by merging adjacent segments.
• Triangulate tool-used to apply triangulation to either complete objects or individual faces of an object.
• After meshes are applied to a face or 3-dimentional object, one can easily manipulate the mesh.
• Two of the tools which can be used, the define profile, and move mesh tools work in conjunction with each other.
• With the define profile tool, one can either use one of the existing profiles, or create a new one, by simply drawing a line on the screen, then selecting the define profile tool. The translation of the lines drawn is shown as a new profile.
• The move mesh tool applies the selected profile to the mesh, and distorts the mesh either radially or linearly, (options selected under the move mesh options box. (To open this box, simply double click on the move mesh tool).