Exercise: Extract a feature line or a break line from a mesh

This guide will introduce you to Single Breaking Line extraction command used for the recreation of sharp edges.

The command Single Breaking Line creates a polyline which follows the characteristics of the mesh you selected before entering the command. From the points you choose, a feature line is constructed by connecting these with the shortest path between them subject to one of the following constraints:
Creating a Feature line

• Regardless the convexity: With this method the path is authorized to be partially concave and partially convex.

• Only concave or only convex: The line will create a path only concave or only convex. The path cannot be partially concave and partially convex.

• Shortest: The line will link the two points in the shortest way possible by following the vertices of the mesh.

The impact of the method on the created line is visualized in the following figure:

Three methods to extract a feature line

To extract a feature line, we enter the command with a selected mesh (Mesh) and click the starting point of our feature line. The method used to constrain the line can be changed for each segment separately. Change the method, if necessary, and click the second point on the mesh, which immediately starts the detection of the feature line segment. In this way you gradually draw the complete path by adding segments one after the other. The created segment will start and end at the nearest vertex from the points clicked and go through the vertices of the mesh.

Clicked points appear as red balls. You can at each moment move these points by clicking them and keeping the button pressed.

Once the feature line is extracted you can extract another feature line with OK, Next.