How to make all polygons into triangles

Question

I need to create test file for my program. But it only accepts polygons with 3 vertices - triangles as input. How can I convert all polygons of some object into triangles?

I know how to select all faces, but how to split them into triangles.

more answers to the same question here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/30846/converting-from-quads-to-triangulated-mesh/30847#30847 — , May 14 '15 at 17:18

Ray Mairlot · Accepted Answer · 2021-11-05T16:17:31.163

44

You can select all the faces and go to Face > Triangulate Faces in the 3D View header (or just press Ctrl+T for the same effect) while in Edit Mode.

As ideasman42 pointed out in the comments, Face > Poke Faces will also triangulate the mesh by adding a vertex in the center of each face and fan-filling around the vertex, it may give preferred results for certain cases, for example, cylinder caps.

You could also add a 'Triangulate' modifier to the object and apply it:

Visualisation of the two methods:

edited Nov 05 '21 at 16:17

answered Nov 26 '14 at 15:33

Ray Mairlot

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One other method, Mesh -> Faces -> Poke Faces, maybe worth adding to answer. – ideasman42 Nov 26 '14 at 15:40
@ideasman42 How does Poke Faces actually differ from triangulation? What else does it do? – nanofarad Nov 26 '14 at 23:50
edited answer explaining what poke-faces does, – ideasman42 Nov 27 '14 at 00:04
Another method would be: Mesh -> Clean up -> Split Non-Planar Faces, then set Max angle to 0. – Leon Cheung Nov 27 '14 at 14:22

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 22 '18 at 06:10

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There is also an easy way to do it through Blender's Python API:

bpy.ops.mesh.quads_convert_to_tris(quad_method='FIXED', ngon_method='BEAUTY') #if you want a faster way

or

bpy.ops.mesh.quads_convert_to_tris(quad_method='BEAUTY', ngon_method='BEAUTY') #If you want nicer cuts

answered Feb 22 '18 at 06:10

Amir

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Is there a way to do this without bpy.ops so the context doesn't matter? (given the object whose mesh should be triangulated) – Nathan Jan 21 '20 at 21:49

How to make all polygons into triangles

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