Select Short Edges selects all edges of a mesh that are not longer than a given length. Use it to find very short edges and the tiny triangles around them before you clean up the mesh.
Select short edges
- Select one mesh in the scene list.
- On the Select tab, open the drop-down arrow next to Select Primitives and choose Select Short Edges.
- Enter Max Edge Length. Edges of this length or shorter are selected.
- Click Select.
The panel closes. The found edges replace the current edge selection and are shown as colored lines; the Information panel shows how many edges are selected.
Which Max Edge Length to choose
Max Edge Length is 0 when you first open the panel; later it shows the last value you used. Compare your value with Avg Edge Length in the Information panel: a value well below the average finds only the smallest edges. On the teapot in the images, the average edge is 0.159 mm, and 0.05 mm selects 1 472 of 9 998 edges, where the triangles are smallest.
Clean up short edges
- Unite Close Vertices replaces groups of close vertices with one vertex, so the edges between them disappear. To unite vertices inside the surface, not only on its boundary, turn off Only boundary vertices.
- Simplify reduces the number of triangles, and Remesh rebuilds the mesh with nearly equal edges.
- To find pairs of edges that lie on top of each other, use Select Twin Edges.
