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A network is made up of three classes of objects: points, curves and patches. Points are placed on the polymesh, curves connect the points, and patches fill the space between curves.

Points

There are four point types: Shape, Division, Fit and Seed.

Shape points are the building block of every network. By placing and moving them over the polymesh, you are defining how the curves and patches will flow across the surface.

When Edit is enabled, shape points can be placed on the mesh with the left mouse button, moved with the middle, and deleted with the right. Shape points are medium sized, and colored blue or magenta.

In previous versions of CySlice, shape points could only be placed on the polymesh vertexes. Now the default is for free point placement, where shape points can sit anywhere on the polymesh surface. To switch back to the old "locked to vertex" method, open up the Preferences panel in the About CySlice window, and uncheck Free Point Placement (see the Optional Code chapter for more details).

Division points are used to divide a curve into smaller segments; they are small sized, and colored red. See the "Divisions" chapter below for more details.

Fit points control how a subdivison surface is calculated from the fitted patch grids, and are small, and colored either green or white. See the Patches: Subdivision Surfaces chapter below for more details.

Seed points define the "fill start point" of each patch; they are large sized, and colored magenta. See the "Patches" chapter below for more details.

[click to zoom]
Figure 52. Point and Curve Controls

To change the display size of all points, edit the Point Size field in the Points and Curves panel (see top of Figure 52). You can also use the left and right arrow buttons to reduce or increase this size by 1.

To change the display width of all curves, edit the Line Width field.


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