The Extrusion Pane
The Extrusion pane is an interactive user interface for creating and meshing 2D models and extruding them into a third dimension. Each model is created within a separate Extrusion set and the pane can contain multiple sets.
The Extrusion pane provides two different views of your model: a construction view and an extrusion view. The construction view is where the 2D shape is drawn and meshed. The extrusion view is where stages of extrusion are specified.
When you have your 3D model ready, you can send it to the Building Blocks pane for further modifications, or you can generate zones immediately and view them in the Model pane or in a plot pane.
As you manipulate your model, most of your actions will be automatically translated into commands that are sent to the i Console pane. See the command reference for information on command syntax ( Extrude Commands , Extrude FISH ).
The Extrusion pane is available through the menu item .
Workflow
To create a new extrusion set, click on the tool button labelled “New extrusion…” (
) and enter a set name. Then you may want to use the “Import background image…” tool button (
) to load a background image (e.g. from a .DXF, .STL, .PNG files), or go straight to using the point-edge tool (
) to create points and edges. If you choose to import a background image, you can trace curves in the image by manually creating edges along them or you may want to automatically create a set of edges which will trace all the curves by using the “Automatic edge tool” (
). The last option is only available when importing CAD geometries (not raster images).
The “Select edges by break angle” tool (
) allows you to select multiple edges for which the angle between each pair is less than the specified break angle. You may use this tool or select edges manually to combine them into a single curved edge by using the “Combine selected edges” tool button (
). The “Control point tool” (
) can be used to work with curved edges which already contain control points or to shape straight edges into curves or polylines. Finally, you can create blocks with structured or unstructured 2D mesh by using the “Blocking tool” (
) or automatically fill all closed polygons in the set with mesh by using “Auto-blocking tool” (
). Clicking on a triangle icon (
) next to the “Blocking tool” lets you select meshing parameters.
When you have blocks created in the construction view, you can go to the extrusion view (
) to create stages of extrusion using the point-edge tool ().
You can set up automatic zone sizes or amount of zones in a current view using the “Autozone” tool (
). Additionally, you can assign your own group names to parts of the model at any time, although the program automatically assigns its own groups to objects.
Once your model is set up, you can either send it to the Building Blocks pane using the “Create building blocks…” tool (
), or create a mesh using the “Extrude” tool button (
).
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