Create a faceted object with careful attention as to where each segment is located. In this example we non-uniformly scaled half of a Geodesic sphere. It should be noted that formZ includes numerous topological editing tools to derive any type of faceted cage object.
Select the Frame tool, set the desired Radius in Tool Options, then click on the object.
Observe a cylindrical frame structure is derived.
Since the resulting frame is a smooth object you can reduce the Display Resolution to increase performance especially with complex frame structures.
Note, the Frame tool works on certain types of smooth objects however the faceted Display Resolution of the smooth object will be used to derive the frame. Thus a good technique is to reduce the Display Resolution of the smooth edges and convert them to faceted prior to using the Frame tool.
FYI, here’s what’s happening behind the scene: a cylindrical tube is created for each segment and a sphere of the same radius is placed at each vertex point, then all the objects are unioned together to create the final frame structure object.
Another tip: You can render your original faceted cage as Wireframe to emulate a frame, (Here), instead of creating actual frame geometry with the Frame tool.
