mesh(+) Version 1-04 now available

mesh(+) Version 1-04 release

A major update to mesh(+) adding a new expand category which allows for the creation of triply periodic surfaces as well as several new components for expanding mesh faces, creating woven meshes and analyzing angles.

Additionally, several components have been updated and errors corrected as well as unifying all outputs with common face normal directions when possible.

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- version 1-04 introduces a new Expand category for the creation of meshes which produce triply periodic meshes from either a mesh offset or a pair of meshes. These components create pseudo versions of common surfaces, primarily the Schwarz and Schoen series as documented by Ken Brakke, http://www.susqu.edu/brakke/evolver/examples/periodic/periodic.html. These meshes have been adapted to allow for parametric manipulation of the surface volume and proportion and do not necessarily produce true versions of the surface, rather recreate the topology. Several of these components, placed in the second category, only work properly with quad mesh faces and similar vertex sequences from adjacent mesh faces. Many of these new components can also be stacked multiple times and welded to create larger volumes with the same mesh face topology. (Note: components which require quad faces for valid mesh creation include an extra output “O” which passes a message indicating whether triangular faces were present in a given mesh)

- Corrected an error with the pinwheel and Chamfer Face Effects and nGon Effects.

- Corrected several small errors with the Face effects components

- Unified output face directions to match general direction of input meshes without the use of unify, weld, or flip for all Face and nGon components (note: Unify and weld are used for some new components in the Modify, Create, and Expand categories, as this relationship is flipped in adjacent faces and requires unification in a larger tiling.)

- Added a simple Explode component to Modify which converts each face of a mesh into an independent mesh.

- Added Edges component which extrudes or offsets the edges of a mesh, creating a “rib” version of the mesh. This component has the option to create a unique mesh per each faces, useful for creating adjacent geometry.

- Added Offset component which offsets a mesh by each vertex normal allowing the creation of an inside, outside, and edge mesh or any combination there of. An optional vector input will convert the output to an extrusion version of the same operation. Additionally, the mesh can optionally be offset equally in both directions.

- Added Angle component to the Test category which returns the angle of each face and vertex normal relative to a user supplied vector in rads as well as a unified value based on a user provided domain. Additionally, values can be converted to an absolute or tangential output allowing negative values to be returned as reflexive values. This is useful for visually determining draft angles for 3d printing.

- Added Weave component to Modify which creates two meshes with radially staggered edge conditions which when tiled create a woven pair of meshes

- Added Loop component to Modify which creates a new mesh from each face with a edge condition that loops from horizontal to vertical about itself creating a constantly looping surface condition. (Note this component requires quad faces with similar vertex sequences from adjacent mesh faces)

- Added Net component to Modify which creates a radially distributed series of mesh bands which wrap around one another creating a net condition in a multiple face mesh.

- Added Expand component to Modify which recursively offsets the anti mesh face of each face and connects the new edges back the vertex points with a diminishing rate of offset.