Join Hinged Faces command (Tools Menu)

This command is used to join three adjacent faces together in a stable geometric relationship.  Initially horizontal, the faces comprise two hinged faces joined to a single fixed face.  The hinged faces are tilted upwards until they share a common edge.  In L3DD this process is referred to as the ‘tilt-up mechanism’.

For the command to succeed, all three faces must initially parallel the groundplane, the vertex that is shared by all three faces must be selected, and the edges to be joined must be the same length (within the current tolerance).  The ‘facing’ of the three faces does not matter.  The command allows 3D objects such as soccer balls and pentagonal dodecaheda to be constructed from their component faces.

In the above before-and-after illustration, the vertex common to all three faces is shown in yellow.  This vertex must be selected first before the Join Hinged Faces command is used.  Because the pentagonal face is joined to two other faces it is defined as the fixed face.  The two hexagons are the hinged faces, joined to the pentagon by one edge each.

The tilt-up mechanism is analogous to the process of constructing a soccer ball with sticky tape and cardboard pentagons and hexagons.  It is, however, much more precise.

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