GExtend allows a surface mesh to be extended (expanded) by adding new faces to it along its boundary. GExtend is useful, for example, to slightly extend fault meshes when they do not exactly intersect with other faults or with mining surfaces (stopes, pit walls, etc.) GExtend can also be used to extend floating joints by creating a construction planes which fully intersect the modeling domain in order to create 3DEC blocks and joints.
With GExtend, new mesh faces are created along a selected part of the mesh boundary or along the whole boundary. The original mesh is not changed, and the new faces can be joined to the original mesh or kept as a separate mesh. GExtend attempts to preserve average tangent and mesh curvature when building new faces. GExtend may be considered as a mesh analog of Rhino’s ExtendSrf surface tool.
GExtend has three modes of operation: (1) ExtendSelectedBoundary, (2) ExtendAllBoundaries, and (3) FreeExtend. For the first two modes, the command extends the boundary by a given distance while the third mode allows the user to do “free” extension of the selected boundary in any direction (by moving selected boundary piece to any location).