TriPrimitive

Applies to: Surfaces

Summary: Produces a triangle-primitive mesh for a surface with three logical sides

Syntax:

Surface <range> Scheme Triprimitive [SMOOTH | nosmoothing]

Discussion:

The triprimitive scheme indicates that the region should be meshed as a triangle. A surface may use the triprimitive scheme if three "natural", or obvious, corners of the surface can be identified. For instance, the surface of a sphere octant (shown in the figure below) is handled nicely by the triprimitive scheme. The algorithm requires that there be at least 6 intervals (2 per side) specified on the curves representing the perimeter of the surface and that the sum of the intervals on any two of the triangle's sides be at least two greater than the number of intervals on the remaining side. The following figure illustrates a triprimitive mesh on a 3D surface.

By default, the triprimitive algorithm will smooth the mesh with an iterative smoothing scheme. This smoothing can be disabled by using the "nosmoothing" option with this command. The quality of the mesh will often be significantly degraded by disabling smoothing, but in certain cases the unsmoothed mesh may be preferred.

Figure 1. Surfaces meshed with scheme Triprimitive