Planes Panel

Use the Planes panel to create a square, planar surface and/or mesh in a user-specified plane, or a surface and/or mesh bounded by planar lines.

Location: 2D page

Trimmed Subpanel

When you select lines to create a surface, the lines must form one complete path, either by touching at the endpoints or by intersecting each other. The tolerance used to determine if the two lines intersect can be modified in the Options panel. Lines translated from other systems often need smoothing to create a useful surface.
Note: The square option does not attempt to smooth any lines.
Option Action
lines / nodes Select the nodes or lines that define the surface.


Figure 1.
mesh, keep surf /mesh, dele surf / mesh, w/o surf / surface only
mesh, keep surf
Create a surface from the selected entities and then generate a mesh on the created surface. The created surface is retained along with the mesh.
mesh, dele surf
Create a surface from the selected entities and then generate a mesh on the created surface. The created surface is then deleted and only the corresponding mesh is retained.
mesh w/o surf
Create a mesh between the selected entities using linear interpolation without creating a surface.
surface only
Create a surface from selected entities, but do not create a mesh. You can use the resulting surface to perform any desired geometry cleanup functions or automeshing.
force to plane / calculate plane Choose either force to plane or calculate plane.

If you choose force to plane, a standard plane and vector selector displays; use it to define the desired plane.

keep line endpoints Ensure that the end points remain as fixed points on the new planar surface(s).

Square Subpanel

Option Action
(plane and vector selector) Select the plane on which you want to create the surface.
Note: You must specify a base node in all cases, since you are defining a plane rather than a vector.
mesh, keep surf / mesh, dele surf / mesh, w/o surf / surface only
mesh, keep surf
Create a surface from the selected entities and then generate a mesh on the created surface. The created surface is retained along with the mesh.
mesh, dele surf
Create a surface from the selected entities and then generate a mesh on the created surface. The created surface is then deleted and only the corresponding mesh is retained.
mesh w/o surf
Create a mesh between the selected entities using linear interpolation without creating a surface.
surface only
Create a surface from selected entities, but do not create a mesh. You can use the resulting surface to perform any desired geometry cleanup functions or automeshing.
size = Specify the size of the surface to create. The distance from the center of the planar surface to the midpoint of each of its edges is half the distance specified in size =.


Figure 2.

Command Buttons

Button Action
create Create the new planar entities (surfaces, mesh elements).
reject Undo the most recent entity creation operation.
return Exit the panel.