Cloning Vertices and Faces

Clone a Vertex or Face To clone a vertex or face hold the Control key down and left-click the vertex or face. The clone turns yellow to show it is selected. Keep the left button down to drag the clone away from the original. Alternatively, use the arrow keys to move it away. The cloned vertex or face is created at the same ‘depth’ as the original, but this can be varied with the mouse scroll wheel, or the Plus and Minus keys. Depth can mean the X, Y or Z directions, depending on scene orientation. Use the Multiply and Divide keys to move a cloned face along its normal. Cloned faces assume the same décor and component names as the original faces.

Create a New Vertex To create a new vertex hold the Ctrl key down and left-click on the dark-blue background. A new vertex is created near the mouse pointer and at the same ‘depth’ as the origin. The accuracy of vertex placement is best in orthogonal scene orientations and worst in 45-degree orientations.

Clone a Group Selection To clone a group of faces or vertices, first select all members of the group -- then left click any (yellow) member of the group with the Ctrl key held down. Move the yellow cloned group away from the originals by dragging them with the mouse, or by using the arrow keys, the Multiply (*) key, or the Esc key. To clone all faces of an object click on the Select All button in the Select Toolbar and then left click any face with the Control key held down. As illustrated on the right, you may then spectacularly ‘explode’ all the cloned faces with the Multiply key. All cloned faces are created with their own vertices.

To get the feel of cloning you should experiment. In particular, try moving cloned faces along their normals with the Multiply (*) and Divide (/) keys

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