Hi,
some 3d apps have an interesting way to convert a mesh into a metal cage.
Here is a description of what I mean.
Say you have a cube and you want it to look like as if it was made out of pipes.
In Cinema 4D this is called the Atom Object and 3ds max has a modifyer for that too (forgot the name)
If my description is not good, I’ll try to make a screen shot of what I’m after.
Anyone knows how this stuff is done in blender?
Thanks for helping 
From what you describe, I can think of UV face mapping, where each face is given the image of a square with an alpha of 0 in the middle. However, I think you want to give each edge a thickness…I know you can delete faces and leave the vertices and edges, and then extrude(?) them…but I am busy rendering right now so cannot verify.
You can press the “wire” button (in the bottom part of the material sub-panel “links and pipeline” - press F5 to see the material panels [= “buttons”]), but this affects only the rendering.
Have a look at the “Dupliverts” function which is the same the Atom’s sphere mapping to the vertecies, only in Blender you can use any object; not just a sphere.
Making a cylinder along each edge (the other part of the Atom Array) is a little trickier, but I dare say some smart cookie in Python could figure it out if there was enough demand!
I guess they could, because points one post up, though only made a couple minutes before yours they already did 
Definatly cool, I was looking for something like that for a one-off the other week.
Would definatly make modeling a roll-bar cage or something like that a snap.
and if you really want to stress test the script, model this gantryway/support tower: /uploads/default/original/3X/9/5/95cf5869a1cea27c1e77c57d5f42c2fe9d55accf.jpgd=1167777973
is that just classic government engineering or what?
Ow, the vertexes. I think my brane just esploded. :eek::spin:
And another one which works for me:
http://jmsoler.free.fr/didacticiel/util/blenderfile/tesselate/tesselate8_8j.py
That link is all 404-ed and stuff. 