All,
Over the past couple months I’ve coded a few edge-based tools (as scripts) that I used in a modeling project I have been working on for awhile. Since I had them lying around and found them really useful, I went ahead and through them together into an add-on. They pretty much implement some edge manipulation tools I am used to having with a CAD package I often use. The tools are as follows:
Extend:
Does exactly what it sounds like: it extends a single, selected edge. You can change the length of how much the edge is extended by.
Spline:
This one has some known issues, but the idea is to connect two edges with a cubic spline using an end point and edge direction to create the control points for the spline generation (knot and handle). You can adjust the tension of each handle and which end point is used (direction). Right now only the “C-spline” and “Beizer” spline types mostly work (the last point is not connected for reasons I cannot decipher).
Angle off Edge:
Probably the worst named one since I have no idea what would be a good name :o. Anyway, the idea is that if you select a line and a plane, then create a new edge some angle off of the original edge in the chosen plane (does that make any sense?) with a given length. In this case you select two edges which gives you your plane, and then it creates edges from there. Then you can choose which vertices to use and which direction (+/-) to create the edges in addition to the length of the created edges. Unfortunately right now the angle control does not work so you are stuck with a right angle.
Shaft:
Creates a cylindrical mesh (“shaft”) about a selected edge. This can work in three ways: select two edges, select an edge and a point, or just select an edge. The first uses one edge as the axis to revolve the second edge around. The second method uses the point to know the radius of the shaft to create. The last one the user specifies the radius of the shaft. This one seems to work perfectly.
Split:
This one “slices” the selected edges on a plane. To use this one, select a face (that is the cutting plane) then the edges that cross the plane that you want to slice. I will warn that while in general it works as expected, sometimes it does really strange stuff, so something about it does not quite work right.
If you encounter any bugs, I would appreciate if you dropped a note here so I can try to figure out what is wrong. Also, if there are any edge-based tools you would like to see feel free to mention them and I will look into adding them.
EDIT: This script is now in the Blender contrib.
Finally, download link:
https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-extensions/contrib/py/scripts/addons/mesh_edgetools.py
Additional screenshots:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/8a883wsn9y6zsiy/Screens.7z