cut intersect edges

Question

I want to create a hexagon using the following steps:

1. Create a plane
2. Copy it and rotate z
3. The desired output

I googled for solutions, but only found the Knife tool which entails a lot of work to cut out 8 faces, and what to do with

4. This complex cut

Is there any faster way to cut faces out of overlapping edges ?

Answer 1

You could use Knife Project to achieve shape (3). First, select the plane which defines the outline you want to cut in, then Shift select the plane which you want to cut and Tab into Edit mode. Find the tool in the Toolshelf here or in the spacebar menu:

Select the face in Edit Mode and execute the Knife Project Tool:

Now delete the faces which are not needed any longer:

If you cut things like this a lot, you could also install the Mesh Tiny CAD addon. At the moment you can find it here: https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/Modeling/mesh_tinyCAD

It allows to intersect vertices, faces and edges in edit mode.

Answer 2

There is an addon called Boolean 2D Union by Luxuy from BlenderCN.org can do this in a flash. It simply uses knife project operator iteratively to save the workload.

How to Use:

1. Download and install attached addon, find and enable it from File > User Preferences > Addon.

2. Select all planes then Ctrl J to join them as one single object.

3. Enter Edit Mode, make sure all faces are selected.

4. W > Boolean 2D Union, or search it via Spacebar.

5. If the mesh is a bit complex, occasionally you may need to do some clean-up work after that, such as deleting unwanted elements. But it does a pretty good job so far.

You can download it from BA thread here.

Answer 3

You can use the Intersect (Knife) tool. First make sure you have intersecting faces in your object. Select an intersecting face then press Ctrl+F then choose Intersect (Knife). Now new edges get created and you can select the faces you want to remove.