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(continued...) Similarly blend and offset surfaces can be created, as can n-sided patches and surfaces from networks of Meta curves.
NURBS surfaces can be tessellated into triangulated polygonal surfaces with control over the level of subdivision.
These are displayed in the Construction Tree hierarchy and maintain associativity so that any changes made to the original NURBS surface are propagated to the polygonal surface, which is updated in real time.
Polygon surface vertices can be edited manually and 3D text can be created from TrueType fonts.
More akin to engraving packages, the Height Field command creates a relief surface from a raster bitmap with the elevation proportional to the intensity of each pixel in the image.
Text files of point cloud data can be used to define reference geometry and surfaces or conversely points can be generated from existing geometry.
As always the quality of the point data will determine the usefulness of the resultant objects.
There is built in support for direct data input from the MicroScribe desktop digitiser and Minolta Vivid Scanner.
Gaps between surface patches can be identified using a tolerance check.
The quality of surfaces can be assessed using a range of analysis tools including surface curvature, reflection line and environment mapping displays.