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Select Outer Edges for AC3D

Download Windows version
Download Linux version *
Download source code

* NOTE: The Linux version was compiled and linked with GCC 3.3.6 on Gentoo x86. If this does not work for you, the source code has been proven to compile/link under Linux, so you may wish to download the source code and compile for your system.

Changes on 2005/09/15:

• Distributed Linux port, courtesy of AJ MacLeod.

Description

This Vertex mode plugin selects any vertices that are on the "edge" of the selected geometry. See example below for details.

This plugin and code are freely distributable

AC3D versions prior to version 5 have not been tested with this script.

Installation

Copy the seloutedge.p file to your AC3D plugins folder (for example, if using Windows, C:\Program Files\AC3D5\plugin) and (re)start AC3D.

You will find the "Select outer edges" menu item under the "Tools" menu.

Example : Selecting outer edges

The example geometry below was created by

1. making a disk
2. with the disk selected, issue a Surface -> Make hole
3. select the "hole" vertices only
4. perform an edge extrusion (Vertex -> Extrude Edges)
5. snap the extruded vertices (Vertex -> Snap Together)
6. pull the vertices in the Z directionfor a cone-like appearance
7. the curve was introduced using the Wave plugin along the Y axis.

I want to select the outermost ring of vertices and create a cylinder behind this object, like so:

With the plugin, I can issue the following steps to get the cylinder created:

1. Select the object
2. Enter Vertex mode
3. Perform a Tools -> Select outer edges - this selects any edges that aren't on the "inside" of geometry. To put it another way, it selects any edges that only have one surface attached.
4. Perform a Vertex -> Extrude Edges
5. Drag (move) the selected extruded edges away from the base object, creating the cylinder.

This is a very simple example, where it would not have been quite so painful to select the outer ring of edges manually. Given geometry like in the example below where you only want to select the outer edges, however, this plugin starts earning its place in your Tools menu.

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