Mesh
Create triangle meshes from points, volumes, distance fields, or fields, or remesh existing geometry.
What it does
Mesh turns most inputs into a solid, renderable surface. Scattered points fuse into a metaball blob. A Distance Field, Volume, or existing Geometry yields a triangle surface at the threshold you choose. Filled vector shapes and Text are filled into flat or extruded solids. One Mode switch selects the outcome, and the algorithm that runs depends on what is plugged into Source.
Extract Mesh builds a solid surface: metaball union for points, isosurface extraction for fields and volumes, remeshing for existing geometry, fill and extrude for vector shapes. Triangulate stretches a flat sheet through the points or shape, following their own best-fit plane, giving a tessellated membrane rather than a solid blob. Render Surface skips mesh generation and ray-marches a Distance Field surface directly: fast to preview, and not real geometry you can export or deform.
When to use it
A solid, organic blob around scattered points: Extract Mesh
A flat surface stretched across a scatter of points: Triangulate
A polygon surface out of a Distance Field, Volume, or Noise field
Cleaning up or retopologising existing Geometry into uniform triangles (a voxel remesh)
Text or a filled shape as 3D geometry, flat or extruded into a solid with Extrude Depth
A cheap preview of a Distance Field surface without paying for mesh extraction: Render Surface
| Parameter | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|
source | Any | Collection(AttributedCollection { col... |
material | OneOf([Collection]) | — |
projection_plane | String | "Auto" |
mode | String | "Extract Mesh" |
resolution | Number | 64 |
voxel_size | Number | 0 |
iso_value | Number | 0.500 |
bounds_mode | String | "Auto" |
bounds_size | Number | 100 |
smooth_normals | Boolean | true |
preserve_attributes | Boolean | false |
remesh_mode | String | "Voxel" |
point_radius | Number | 0 |
blend | Number | 0.500 |
extrude_depth | Number | 0 |
ray_cast | Boolean | false |
alpha | Number | 1 |
strength | Number | 1 |
Gotchas
Render Surface mode does not produce real geometry. It is a live ray-marched preview of a Distance Field surface, and it will not export, deform, or combine with other meshes the way an Extract Mesh output does.
Preserve Attributes (Geometry remesh only) re-samples the original surface's colour onto the new mesh. With it on, the result is no longer a GPU-resident mesh; it becomes CPU-resident, which is slower to work with downstream. Leave it off unless the source colour has to survive the remesh.
What Mode does depends on what is wired into Source. Points give a metaball blob (Extract Mesh) or a flat Delaunay sheet (Triangulate). A Distance Field, Volume, or Noise field gives an isosurface. Existing Geometry is remeshed. Text and filled shapes are filled, and optionally extruded, into a mesh. The same Mode label produces different results for different sources.
Point Radius and Blend only matter when the source is points in Extract Mesh mode. Leave Point Radius at 0 (auto) unless the scatter is unusually sparse or dense, since it derives a radius from point spacing. Blend controls how far neighbouring blobs fuse: 0 gives visible individual lumps, higher values give a smoother, more organic surface.
Voxel Size, not Resolution, is the control for remeshing Geometry. It is a scale-invariant cell size (Blender's voxel remesh), so the same value gives consistent detail regardless of object size. Leave it at 0 to fall back to the fixed Resolution grid.
Worked example
Scatter some points, or wire in a Noise field / Distance Field / existing Geometry as Source.
Leave Mode on "Extract Mesh" for a solid surface. For a scatter of points, raise Blend if the individual blobs look too separate.
Raise Resolution for finer surface detail, or lower it while composing the scene.
If your source is Geometry and needs a clean, uniform retopology, switch Remesh Mode and dial in Voxel Size instead of Resolution.
To turn Text or a filled shape into a solid, raise Extrude Depth above 0.
Wire a material into the Material input, or switch to "Render Surface" mode for a preview without committing to a full mesh extraction.
See also
Sweep · Convex Hull · Pen · Geometry (meshes)