Lines to Mesh fills closed polyline contours with triangles and makes a mesh object from them. Use it to turn a section contour, an imported outline or a set of iso-lines into a flat surface, a plate with holes, or a plate with a set thickness.
The tool is on the Lines tab, next to the other conversion tools: Lines to Distance Map, Lines to Points and Lines to Voxels.
Before you start
- Select exactly one polyline object in the Scene tree.
- Every contour of the object must be closed. If a contour has open ends, the button is unavailable and its tooltip says At least one closed contour required.
Closed contours come, for example, from the Section tool (Create Section Object in its Export group), from an imported polyline file, or from Distance Map to IsoLines.
Convert contours to a mesh
- Select the polyline object.
- Click Lines › Lines to Mesh.
- Set the options in the panel (see the table).
- Click Convert (or press Enter).
MeshInspector replaces the polyline object with a mesh object of the same name and closes the panel. Objects nested in the polyline move to the new mesh. To get the contours back, use Undo (Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on macOS).
| Option | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Planar Processing | On: MeshInspector fits one plane through all contours and triangulates them together, so a contour inside another contour becomes a hole. Off: each contour is filled on its own. | On |
| Thick Mesh | Shown only with Planar Processing on. On: the mesh is closed and gets a thickness. Off: the result is a flat surface with an open boundary. | Off |
| Offset | Shown only with Thick Mesh on. The thickness: MeshInspector repeats the contours shifted by this distance to build the other side of the body. | Almost zero, so set your value. The maximum is the diagonal of the bounding box of the contours. |
Plates with holes: Planar Processing on
With Planar Processing on, all contours of the object are processed as one flat drawing. The outer contour becomes the boundary of the surface, and the contours inside it become holes. This is the mode for section contours and outlines of flat parts.
Turn on Thick Mesh and set Offset to get a closed plate instead of a flat surface. The plate has the shape of the contours and side walls along its boundary.
Planar Processing expects flat contours: if the contours do not lie in one plane, MeshInspector still projects them onto the best-fit plane, and the result can differ from the original shape.
3D contours: Planar Processing off
With Planar Processing off, MeshInspector fills each closed contour separately with a patch of minimal area, like filling a hole. The contours do not have to be flat or lie in one plane, so use this mode for 3D contours, for example a boundary traced on a curved surface. Contours inside other contours do not become holes: each contour gets its own patch, and patches can overlap. Thick Mesh is not available in this mode.
