Mesh cleanup
Since it is very easy to create a non-manifold geometry in a Blender, I believe that a function is needed to cleanup (fix or just select) the geometry.
In my opinion, this tool should fix (or at least highlight): triangles, ngons, all sorts of artifacts, such as faces and edges with zero size, lamina faces, edge-chains.
I know that there are plugins that can partially do the job, but I think this feature is necessary out of the box.
8 Comments
Totally agree. One of the things that I wanted taken care of with a tool, is the "Unify" of totally contiguous Polygons. I routinely take care of this in two other 3D programs that I also use, but as Id work more in Blender all the time, I miss a way to collapse 'double' polygons, into a single poly. They may be a way, but I have yet to 'bump' into it yet. Also, high-lighting of NGons needing attention. Should be an easy way to high-light polys of 1 or 2 and 5 or more vertices.
3dprint tool — built in addon. Use it. It is easy to make bad topology for newbie.
* @ Vyacheslav * This.
I think the problem is that the definition of 'clean up' is going to be different from user to user. For example, since I work with a lot of CAD data, a cleaned up mesh should have complex planar surfaces dissolved into ngons, but you say ngons are artifacts that need to be cleaned up.
When something is 'built in' out of the box, it has to take everyone into consideration- where addons can do whatever and target specific users.
as for highlighting issues- there is an addon that ships with blender called 3D Print Analyzer that highlights most if not all of the issues you listed already.
* @testure * Fair commentary, did not know this about CAD data converting to NGons? I will check into 3D Print Analyzer as I had no occasion to look at it since I don't 3D print. Thank you.
YES, I've made many short-cuts to help with mesh clean up.
I learned 3D using LightWave at school and I remember having a panel that just showed a list from 0 to 4+ vertices with a number behind it to show that you have for example 3 polygons with 2 vertices and 4 polygons with 3 vertices in your scene, and there was a + and - button behind every line to select or deselect said polygons. I haven't looked into this in Blender but I did find this a useful panel, especially when learning to model without knowing what all the buttons do so I could easily find the misshapen polygons.
* @yorque.ubaghs * That is exactly where I learned 3D modeling, and I still use those panels for the information and highlighting. Very useful. Would welcome these ported into Blender!