Slicing a triangulated surface

This example illustrates the process of slicing a triangulated surface mesh, or triangle mesh, which is a common operation in 3D modeling. A triangulated surface mesh is composed of numerous triangular facets that collectively define the shape of a three-dimensional object. Slicing this mesh involves creating a cross-section of the geometry, which can be useful for various applications such as 3D printing, visualization, and analysis of the underlying structure. The slicing process typically requires defining a plane or a series of planes that will intersect the mesh, and then determining the lines of intersection between the triangles and the slicing planes. This operation yields a new set of lines or polygons that represent the cross-sectional area of the original mesh. Furthermore, the resulting slices can be manipulated or analyzed to extract meaningful information about the geometry, area and other geometric properties.

If you are interested to see a more extensive example, showing how to analyze the resulting slices, please check this blog post on Python for 3D modelling. There is also a post that provides an overview of tools to edit and analyse triangle meshes.

# import bone stl file
bone = Mesh.read('femur.stl')
draw(bone, color='grey')

# slice triangulated bone mesh along its axis
slices = bone.slice(dir = [0.0 , 0.0 , 1.0], nplanes = 50)
draw(slices, color='#2BB786', line_width = 3.0)

Figure: Example of slicing a triangulated surface mesh