Create solid region mask from skin

[bryn]

Recently I was asked by a user how to make a solid (uniform = single material) model of a subregion of an anatomical model, e.g. the arm.

Here is what I proposed, with a short animation to illustrate the workflow.

1. boolean Intersect the skin with a box (first run Mesh Tools -> Mesh Doctor -> Make Manifold, to ensure the boolean intersect is robust)
2. use the patch selection tool (Mesh Tools -> Select Patches) to select the outer surface of the skin
3. extract the patch as a triangle mesh
4. use the Mesh Doctor to close the top/bottom holes
5. optionally optimize the closed triangle mesh using the Mesh Tools -> Remesh tool

Click on the image below to view the gif animation:

[hyh]

Hi Bryn, the gif is too small. Would you please make it bigger?Thx.

[bryn]

Hi @hyh , the forum does not allow me to embed the original high-res gif. So here is a dropbox link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vflbgwelg5y9ci2/solid_arm.gif?dl=0

[hyh]

@bryn Great! Thank you very much!