Meshers

Meshers are a class of node that takes one of more Shape nodes as input and generates a mesh as output.

 

There are currently four Meshers in Archimatix:

Polygon – The input Shape is triangulated to be a single-sided flat mesh with the option to triangulates the back face as well. he resulting mesh could be a ground or floor plane, window glass, a billboard or decal of any shape.

 

Extrude – The shape is duplicated and lofted to create a mesh that has top and bottom polygons which are connected with sides. An Extrude can have beveled top and bottom corners as well as a taper along its height.

 

Lathe – A shape is rotated around an axis. The resulting mesh appears to have been fashioned on a lathe – for example, a barrel, a staff, a column.

 

PlanSweep – One shape (a section profile) is extruded around another (a plan shape). The resulting mesh could be a building with a cornice, a door molding, or the rim of a container of any shape.

 

In the future there will be more Mesher nodes, such as a Loft node which can combine several section Shapes into a mesh to make things like ship hulls.

It can be useful to compare the inputs of the four Mesher nodes to get as sense of their differences:

With additional complexity we need more Shape and material input options. Otherwise, looking at the lower half of the four Meshers, we see that they all share an Output Mesh, Combine Mesh toggles and a Physics controls foldout.