Patch

Patch open areas that define a closed loop, or create a bridge between two open edges that do not define a closed area.

1. On the Geometry ribbon, select the Patch tool. Make sure that Patch is selected on the guide bar.
   
   
   Note: The tool may be hidden in a dropdown menu. To access the dropdown menu, you can do one of the following:

   • Click and hold the currently displayed tool (Partition, Simplify, Midsurface, or Scale).
   • Select at the lower right corner of the currently displayed tool (Partition, Simplify, Midsurface, or Scale).
   All of the open edges in the model are selected and highlighted in red. The total number of open edges is displayed above the Patch tool. Chains of open edges that define a closed area are counted as a single entity.
2. Select open edges to define areas to patch or bridge.
   • To create a patch, select a group of edges that define a closed area. If there are several open edges that define a closed area, selecting an adjacent edge will add it to the chain.
   • To create a bridge, select two edges or groups of edges that do not define a closed area.
   • To patch all candidate locations, click Apply on the guide bar.
   If the patch is successful, the new patched surface is shown in red.
3. Optional: Use the options on the microdialog to apply tangent or positional continuity to the patched edges where they meet the adjacent surface.
4. Right-click and mouse through the check mark to exit, or double-right-click.

Click once to select a problematic surface, and again to remove it.

1. On the Geometry ribbon, select the Patch tool.
   Note: The tool may be hidden in a dropdown menu. To access the dropdown menu, you can do one of the following:

   • Click and hold the currently displayed tool (Partition, Simplify, Midsurface, or Scale).
   • Select at the lower right corner of the currently displayed tool (Partition, Simplify, Midsurface, or Scale).
2. Click Patch on the guide bar, and select Delete Faces from the menu.
3. Click a surface to select it. The surface turns red.
4. Click the surface again to remove it, or click Apply on the guide bar to remove all selected red surfaces.

Note: Sometimes the Patch tool will show overlapping surfaces as a missing region. While you cannot use the Patch tool to fix overlapping surfaces directly, you can delete the problematic surface and then recreate it using the Patch tool.

Figure 3. Overlapping Surfaces Shown in Red

Select open edges individually to define an area to patch.

1. On the Geometry ribbon, select the Patch tool.
   Note: The tool may be hidden in a dropdown menu. Next to the Partition, Simplify, Midsurface, or Scale tool, you may need to select in order to select the Patch tool.
2. Click the Clear Selection button on the guide bar to deselect all edges.
3. Select open edges to define an area to patch or bridge.
   • Click an open edge to select it.
   • Select an adjacent edge to add it to the chain.
   • Ctrl + click to deselect an edge.
   • Ctrl + double-click to deselect an entire chain of edges.
4. Once you have selected all of the desired edges, click the chain to perform the patch.