Mesh Descriptions
A mesh description is a version of a surface or volume mesh belonging to a geometry part. Geometry parts can have more than one surface mesh description associated with them. You create and change descriptions by importing surfaces or executing operations.
Every description has an equivalent representation. The vertices and edges that are displayed in scenes come from the representations. When you drag a description onto a scene, in order to view its parent part, the scene takes its data from the corresponding representation. See What Are Representations?.
The following list summarizes the main types of mesh descriptions:
- Root Description—holds the original tessellated surface mesh from the imported geometry parts.
- Operation Descriptions—holds the surface mesh that was created or changed as a result of a mesh operation.
- Input Surface Description—holds the input surfaces for mesh operations which creates output parts. You can use this description to switch between viewing the input and output of an operation.
- Latest Surface Description—holds the surface mesh from the most recent mesh operation that you executed on the geometry parts. It appears along with the root description when the part is first imported or created.
- Latest Surface/Volume Description—holds the latest mesh, which can be a surface mesh or a volume mesh, from the most recent mesh operation that you executed on the geometry parts. This description is persistent, meaning that it is not deleted when you clear the mesh. This behavior is useful if you want to view the latest mesh on your parts without having to change representations in the scene. For example, if the latest mesh is a surface mesh, the surface mesh is displayed in the scene. After generating the volume mesh, the volume mesh is automatically displayed in the scene.
- Automated Mesh
- Imprint Parts
- Morph Surface Mesh
- Part Curve Creator
- Surface Wrapper (with the Per-Part Meshing property activated)
- Transform (with the Create Output Part(s) property deactivated)
- Zip Edges (when the Zip Mode property is set to New Description — Discrete)
Whenever you execute a mesh operation on a part, the operation acts on the last description in the tree which contains that part.
If you set a scene to display the latest description, and then you remesh the surface or perform an imprint operation, the scene automatically updates to display the latest description.
| Note | Other mesh operations create new parts, not descriptions. If you want to see the result of these operations, modify the visible parts in the current scene. |