9

972 Chapter 9: Surface Modelin g
Inter face
Vertex—Lets you select vertex control p oints
and their vector handles on a patch objec t. At this
level, vertices can be welded and deleted.
By default, a transform gizmo or axis tripod
appears at the geometric center of the selected
vertices. If you turn on Gizmo Preferences (page
3–832) >AllowMultipleGizmos,however,gizmos
or tripods appear at all selected vertices.
Vector hand les appear as small green squares
around selected vertices. Also, with certain objects
you may see interior vertices represented a s yellow
squares.
Handle—Lets you select vector handles
associated with each vertex. T his level lets you
manipulate the handles without needing to deal
with vertices.
ATransformgizmooraxistripodappearsatthe
geometric center of the selec ted handles.
At this level, vector hand les appear as small g reen
squares around a ll vertices. Also, with certain
objects you may see interior vertices represented
as yellow squares.
Edge—Selects a bounding edge of the p atch
object. At this level, edges can b e subdivided, and
new patches added to open edges.
A Transform gizmo or axis tripod appears in the
middle of a single selected edge. Fo r multiple
selected edges, the icon is at the selection center.
Patch—Selectsanentirepatch.Atthislevel,
apatchcanbedetached,deleted,oritssurface
subdivided. When a patch is subdivided, the
surface is broken into smaller patches, each with
its ow n vertices and edges.
Element—Select and edit an entire element.
An element has contiguous faces.
Tip: You can highlight selected patches in a shaded
displaybyturningonShadeSelectedFacesinthe
View por t Propert ies dialog. Right-click over the
viewportnameandchooseConfigureinthemenu
to display the Viewport Properties dialog. You
can also use the default keyboard shortcut, F2,to
toggle this feature.
Named Se lections group
These functions work with named sub-object
selection sets. To create a named sub-object
selection, make the selection, and then enter
anameintheNamedSelectionSetsfieldon
the toolbar. For more information, see Named
Selection Sets (page 1–83).
Co py—Places a named sub-object selection into
the copy buffer. After clicking this button, choose
the named sub-object selection f rom the Copy
Named Selection dialog that appears.
Pas t e—Pastes the named sub-object select ion from
the copy buffer.