TABLE OF CONTENTS Surface models are a step up in realism from wireframe models because their surfaces can hide objects, and they can assume material properties and reflect light in renderings. Your exploration of surfaces begins in this chapter as you concentrate on wireframe objects that have surface-like properties, and on the AutoCAD commands that make flat surfaces. Even though these commands are limited in the shapes they can make, they are extremely important commands because so many objects and surfaces in the real world are flat.
This chapter
describes the AutoCAD object types that can be used for surfaces;
discusses the use of extrusion thickness as a surface;
explains how to make three and four-sided planar surfaces with the 3DFACE command;
describes how to use the PFACE command to make surface models that have multiple planar surfaces;
tells you how to convert 3D faces into a polyface mesh.
3D wireframe models are often useful, but they are seldom realistic looking. You must imagine that surfaces exist between their edges, and there is no way to hide objects that you would not be able to see if the model was opaque. When you need a 3D model that is closer to reality, you make it as a surface model or as a solid model, rather than as a wireframe model. Either of those types of 3D models...
