Creating a Solid by Rotating a Polygon

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Creating a Solid by Rotating a Polygon

Creates a solid by rotating a polygon about an axis.

\rosol

Specify the rotation angle. The solid does not have to be the full 360 degrees around the axis.

Specify the number of sectors, between 3 and 50. The more sectors you specify the smoother the curve of the solid will be, but the resulting entity will also be heavier. For example, if you select 3 sectors for a rotation angle of 360 degrees, the resulting solid is triangular (each sector 60 degrees); if you select 4 it is square (90 degrees).

Indicate the polygon that you want to rotate.

Open Polygon Rotation

An open polygon string (not a loop) is rotated about an imaginary line that joins the two ends of the polygon string.

$image\ebx_1712504276.gif$ IMPORTANT Make sure that the polygon does not cross the imaginary line that links the ends of the polygon. If it does, an illegal solid is created that will fail in the solid viewing mode!

$image\ebx_1952484965.gif$ $image\ebx_-1152906311.gif$

Closed Polygon Rotation

Specify two points in space. The system rotates the polygon about the line that links these two points.

$image\ebx_-845778543.gif$ $image\ebx_327118518.gif$

$image\ebx_1712504276.gif$ IMPORTANT Make sure that the rotation axis is external to the polygon. If it is not, an illegal solid is created that will fail in the solid viewing mode!

The resulting solid is a complex solid polygon. The original polygon does not form part of the solid and becomes selected by the system so that you can erase it using the Deleting selected entities (\sdel) command if you so wish. The rotation axis is displayed as a help line that may be removed using the Deleting all help lines (\hdel) command.