Shell

Polygons > Shell is similar to Polygons > Offset, but creates an addi­tional polygon surface that is a given distance from the original.

The controls are:

• Thickness - specifies the distance of the additional surface from the existing surface.

• Uniform radio button - generates new vertex positions by moving exist­ing vertices in their normal direction.

• Preserve Mesh checkbox - reduces the size of interior triangles, thus preserving the original mesh on the interior surface. Otherwise, trian­gles on the interior are reduced in number.

• Smooth radio button - optimizes the triangulation of the new surface to minimize distortion.

• Bidirectional checkbox - specifies that half the Distance is applied to every polygon on the surface, such that Distance equals the total increase of the object’s width. Shelling of a non-manifold object must be bidirec­tional.

• OK button - stores additional polygon objects (the new shell(s)) in the Model Manager.

• Cancel button - terminates the dialog without saving polygon objects (new shell(s)) to the Model Manager.

• Apply button - creates a shell as configured, and prepares for creation of another.