Need a plugin to do this

pbacot

How about Toposhaper. It will put a grid on a flat surface or edges as well as contours

pilou

Else it's not a big deal to make a grid with any orientation and size as you want and make intersection with your surface!

JonFar

thanks guys, I'll try those plugins

the intersect grid with surface solution would be ideal, but when I do that some faces dont get properly created and then this happens:

strange, right?

pbacot

I've never found intersect faces to be reliable with edges that lie on a face. When the FACES actually intersect is when it works best, so it is called.....

Actually I wonder what Pilou is doing in that gif because I can't repeat it.

If I were doing it manually, I'd use a smoothed grid, overlay the shape then while smooth remove the unwanted part, while it is smooth--pretty fast. But you say you have a LOT to do so I am not questioning you want it to be as simple as possible. You could make a super grid, all smooth and place ALL your shapes on it at once and select and delete the negative space at once.

cotty

A fast way would be the intersection with such a "grid" component...

pilou

@unknownuser said:

Actually I wonder what Pilou is doing in that gif because I can't repeat it.

like this!

Surface = Group "Surface"
Grid = any Grid : Group "Lines" (Grid = A line: Move / Copy, An alone "line" : Move / Copy) = the secret : lines are automatically "themselves intersected" so segments!
Select Group "Lines" : Intersection with Model
Select Group "Lines" : Kill it
Select Group "Surface" : Explode it
Select All : Intersection with Selection : many times if some edges stay "doubled" (second secret)
et voilà

Maybe all in 3 seconds with little training!

Use the OutLiner for easy selection of Groups

jolran

Are you going to apply this to a flat/2d face first, and then smoove ? Then Hatchfaces plugin with crosshatching and using a material should create the pattern. I think (?) anyway....

sdmitch

@jonfar said:

thanks guys, I'll try those plugins

the intersect grid with surface solution would be ideal, but when I do that some faces dont get properly created and then this happens:

strange, right?

A common problem when trying to sub-divide a face using edges. You might give my Mesh Maker plugin on my blog page a try. Or better yet Fredo6's ner Face Triangulator!