Mesh

The Mesh command creates a polygon mesh from a NURBS surface or polysurface.

A mesh is a collection of vertices and polygons that define the shape of an polyhedral object. Meshes in Rhino consist of triangles and quadrilaterals.

Rhino creates triangles and quadrilaterals meshes for export into various file formats. If a mesh is generated from a solid, the mesh will be seamless/watertight.

Note

The meshes created by the Mesh command are visible and editable, and separate from the NURBS objects they were created from.
The meshes created by any shaded viewport display mode on NURBS surfaces and polysurfaces are invisible. They can be updated from the NURBS object with the RefreshShade command, and can be extracted with the ExtractRenderMesh command.

Seamless (watertight or closed) mesh

Rhino creates triangles and quadrilaterals meshes for export into various file formats. When surfaces are joined together in Rhino, the meshes along the joined edge have coincident vertices. If a mesh is generated from a solid, there will be no holes in the mesh. This is valuable for export to STL rapid prototyping files.

Steps

1. Select surfaces or polysurfaces to mesh.
2. Preview the mesh and set mesh options.

Polygon Mesh Options

Fewer polygons – More polygons

The slider roughly controls the density and number of mesh polygons. Set the slider and click

Preview

The mesh is drawn as a preview in the viewports, and the dialog box stays on screen for more adjustments.

Detailed Controls

Opens the Polygon Mesh Detailed Options dialog box.

See also

Wikipedia: Polygon mesh

Draw mesh objects


Rhinoceros 5 © 2010-2015 Robert McNeel & Associates. 17-Sep-2015