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Fast Offset offsets a mesh very quickly: it moves every vertex along its normal by a Global Offset, plus an Additional Offset in the regions you save. The triangles stay the same, only the vertices move. Use it for a quick, small offset of a clean mesh, with a larger distance in some areas.
Fast Offset works best with clean meshes that have well-shaped triangles and few or no self-intersections. As the tooltip says, the correctness of the resulting geometry is not guaranteed, so check the mesh after the operation. For a reliable voxel-based offset, use Offset; for a shell with a different thickness in some regions, use Partial Shell.
To open the tool, select exactly one mesh, go to the Mesh Edit tab, click the arrow next to Offset and choose Fast Offset.
Fast Offset: Parameters
Once you select Fast Offset, the dedicated settings panel opens.
Global Offset defines the offset distance applied to the entire mesh. The region-specific settings below it allow you to apply an additional offset to selected areas. The Additional Offset value is added to the Global Offset value for the corresponding region. Both values are positive, so Fast Offset moves the surface outward only.
The Regions dropdown allows you to create new regions and switch between previously saved ones. Initially, it contains only one option: New Region. When this option is active, you can select an area of the mesh and save it as a new region.
You can select the required area before opening Fast Offset or while the panel is open. To create or modify a selection, go to the Select tab and click Select Primitives. You can use any available selection mode depending on the shape of the target area.
In the example above, we use the Rect selection mode to select the lower part of the bust. Opening the Select Primitives panel does not close the Fast Offset panel, so you can work with the selection tools and Fast Offset settings simultaneously.
The Update Region button appears only when the mesh has selected triangles. Once the required area is selected, enter a value in the Additional Offset field and click Update Region. The current mesh selection is saved as a region, and the specified Additional Offset will be added to the Global Offset in that area when the operation is applied. The first saved region appears as 1 in the Regions dropdown.
You can save additional regions if needed. To do this, make sure New Region is selected in the Regions dropdown, select another area using Select Primitives under the Select tab, enter a value in the Additional Offset field, and click Update Region again. Subsequent regions will be saved as 2, 3, 4, and so on. To change a saved region, choose its number in Regions: MeshInspector selects its triangles and shows its Additional Offset. Change the selection or the value and click Update Region. If regions overlap, a vertex gets the Additional Offset of the region with the lower number.
In the example below, we clicked Inverse Selection to select the upper part of the bust, entered 2.5 millimetres in the Additional Offset field, and clicked Update Region. The new region appears as 2 in the Regions dropdown.
After all regions and their Additional Offset values have been defined, click Apply to run the operation. Only saved regions count: a selection for which you did not click Update Region gets only the Global Offset. The result replaces the mesh of the same object; to get the original back, use Undo (Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on macOS).
In this example, the resulting offsets are as follows:
- Global Offset: 1 millimetre
- Region 1, the lower part: an Additional Offset of 1 millimetre, resulting in a total offset of 2 millimetres
- Region 2, the upper part: an Additional Offset of 2.5 millimetres, resulting in a total offset of 3.5 millimetres
