3dSynth

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Extrude

Push a planar Region (or a closed Path, via the implicit Path → Region conversion) into a 3D solid Mesh along an arbitrary direction.

Together with Rectangle / Circle / Voronoi 2D, this is the shortest path from a 2D profile to something printable. Holes in the input region become real holes through the resulting solid.

Node

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Sockets

region (in)
Region. Outer boundary plus optional holes. A plain Path is auto-wrapped as a Region with no holes. Required.
distance (in)
Float. How far to push along Direction, in mm. Must be > 0. Default: 10.
direction (in)
Vector3. Extrusion direction. A zero-length vector falls back to the region's plane normal. Default: [0, 0, 1].
mesh (out)
Mesh — solid with bottom cap, top cap, outer side wall, and one inward-facing wall per hole.

Parameters

Distance
Extrusion length along Direction, in mm. Default: 10.
Direction
Push direction. Default: [0, 0, 1] (straight up). Set to a custom vector for oblique extrusions.
Cap Top
Triangulate and emit the upper face. Disable for an open shell. Default: true.
Cap Bottom
Triangulate and emit the lower face. Disable for an open bottom. Default: true.

How It Works

  1. Plane fit. Newell's method finds an orthonormal basis on the outer loop. Holes inherit the same plane.
  2. Earcut (with holes). A local port of mapbox/earcut bridges holes into the outer ring and triangulates the resulting simple polygon in 2D (u, v).
  3. Caps. Bottom uses the triangulation as-is (CCW → outward-facing normal). Top is the same triangulation translated by distance × direction and reversed (CW → upward-facing normal).
  4. Side walls. Quad strips are emitted around the outer loop and around every hole. Outer walls are wound so normals point outward; hole walls inherit CW winding so normals automatically face into the hole.

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