Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. 216 AutoCAD and Its Applications—Advanced Drawing Mesh Primitives Drawing Mesh Primitives A primitive is a basic building block. Just as there are solid primitives in AutoCAD, there are mesh primitives. The seven mesh primitives are the mesh box, mesh cone, mesh cylinder, mesh pyramid, mesh sphere, mesh wedge, and mesh torus. See Figure 9-4. These primitives can be used as the starting point for creating complex freeform mesh models. The Mesh Primitive Options dialog box is used to set the number of tessellation subdivisions for each mesh primitive object created. See Figure 9-5. This dialog box is displayed by picking the dialog box launcher button at the lower-right corner of the Primitives panel in the Mesh tab of the ribbon or by using the MESHPRIMITIVEOPTIONS command. Set the number of tessellation subdivisions in the Mesh Primitive Options dialog box before creating a mesh primitive. There is no way to change the number of subdivisions after the primitive is created. The tessellation subdivisions for each primitive are based on the dimensions required to create the primitive. For example, a box has length, width, and height subdivisions. On the other hand, a mesh cylinder has axis, height, and base subdivi- sions. To set the subdivisions, select the primitive in the tree on the left-hand side of the Mesh Primitive Options dialog box. The subdivision properties are then displayed below the tree. Enter the number of subdivisions as required and then close the dialog box. All new primitives of that type will have this number of subdivisions until the setting is changed in the dialog box. Existing primitives are not affected. MESH Ribbon Mesh Primitives Mesh Box Mesh Cone Mesh Cylinder Mesh Pyramid Mesh Sphere Mesh Wedge Mesh Torus Type MESH Mesh Box Mesh Pyramid Mesh Cone Height Height Height Corner Center Radius Mesh Cylinder Radius Center Height Center Radius Mesh Sphere Mesh Torus Center Radius Mesh Wedge Height Corner Torus radius Center Tube radius Figure 9-4. An overview of AutoCAD’s mesh primitives and the dimensions required to draw them.