Meshes

Overview

So far we have seen meshes a handful of times, so we should have a decent idea of what they are by now. We will now introduce them formally, discuss their pros and cons, and delve a bit deeper into the Meshes class and its capabilities.

The 3D mesh

A 3D mesh is a structured representation of a three-dimensional object. It is made up of a collection of points, known as vertices, and the edges that connect them. Additionally, edges are also connected together via surfaces called faces. Faces also have normal vectors that define their “out” direction. The mesh of a 3D object can be thought of as a minimal description of its surface geometry. All of these things together describe the outer surface of an object. They also interact with the textures and materials to display these objects realistically, as we have seen before.