Thicken
The Thicken tool changes the volume of a mesh by giving a constant thickness to each face to create a completely closed mesh with no boundaries.
Benefits
The Thicken tool is useful for:
- Giving faces with no volume thickness
- Creating constant thickness parts
How to Use
- How to create thickness
- Make sure that a mesh object and a Constructed Plane are visible in the Model View.
- In the MEASURED tab, in the Tools group, click Thicken or go to MENU > Tools > Measured Tools > Thicken.
- Select the Method as Surface and set the Thickness to 3 mm.
- Click OK to complete the command.
Options in Detail
Methods
Surface – Defines new offset poly-faces that are a specific distance from an original mesh.
Thickness – Specifies an offset distance. To change an offset direction, use the Direction1 or Direction2 options. To offset both directions at the same time, use Both.
Direction 1 – Thickens in the default positive direction.
Direction 2 – Thickens in the opposite, negative direction from Direction1.
Both – Thickens using both Direction 1 and Direction 2 at the same time.
Volume – Calculates the distance from a voxel node to a poly-vertex and makes a new thickened polygon using the distance.
Output Resolution Control – Determines the resolution of poly-faces after an offset by specifying a multiplier of the current poly-edge length. This option is available for the Volume method.
Current Average Edge Length – Shows the resolution of the current average edge length.
Edge Length Multiplier – Multiplies the average edge length by a specified value.
Target Average Edge Length – Defines average edge length by a specified value.
More Options
Preview Thicken Result – Displays a thickened result as a point cloud.
Remove Crossing Region – Automatically verifies and cleans crossing regions. This option is available for the Surface method.
Make Closed Mesh – This option is available when you select the Volume method. If a mesh is not closed, the application will close and thicken a mesh.