---
title: "Basic Tutorial | Improve the 3D Mesh of the Samothrace Victory"
slug: "cyclone-3dr-ex-improve-the-3d-mesh-of-the-samothrace-victory"
updated: 2026-09-07T11:51:19Z
published: 2026-09-07T11:51:19Z
canonical: "rcdocs.leica-geosystems.com/cyclone-3dr-ex-improve-the-3d-mesh-of-the-samothrace-victory"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://rcdocs.leica-geosystems.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Basic Tutorial | Improve the 3D Mesh of the Samothrace Victory

> [!TIP]
> Open the file **Victory.3dr** ([download](https://www.cyclone3dr.com/download_helper.php?File=Cyclone3DRSampleData/Victory.3dr)).

Then show only the mesh **Victory (complete)**. Throughout this exercise, we will see how to cut a mesh and how to work independently on different parts of the mesh (by reducing a part and, on the contrary, refining another one).

### Cut / remove triangles

Select the mesh **Victory (complete)** and go to the command [Clean / Separate Mesh](/v1/docs/cyclone-3dr-cleanseparatemeshc). This command allows you to delete triangles or to cut your mesh in several pieces. Here we will cut the two wings in order to get 3 different meshes.

Select **Polyline tool**, and then select the options **Select Through**.

**Select through** means that we will select all triangles inside the polygon, even the hidden ones. Set the view in order to see the entire wing and draw a polygon around it (as in the following picture).

![image2019-9-16_14-1-7.png](https://cdn.document360.io/820e11db-8ed5-45ae-ac86-f6b77dcb2aa7/Images/Documentation/image2019-9-16-14-1-7.png)

Cut a part of a mesh by selecting triangles inside a polygon

Press **Enter** to validate the selection. Then do the same for the second wing.

You can select mode **Remove from selection** (shortcut "-") to remove triangles from the current selection before validating.

Once the two wings are selected, click **Split** and then **OK** to validate. If you want to delete the selected triangles, click on **Delete**.

Note that all pieces of meshes are grouped into a single mesh by default.

### Refine mesh

We saw in the 3D mesh creation chapter that we can do a mesh in two steps: create a rough mesh and then refine it in order to add details to the mesh. The command [Refine Mesh from Cloud Interpolation](/v1/docs/cyclone-3dr-refineinterpolateinthemiddleofthecloudc) corresponds to this second step.

Select the cloud **Victory** and the mesh **Wing 1 (to refine)**, and then go to [Refine Mesh from Cloud Interpolation](/v1/docs/cyclone-3dr-refineinterpolateinthemiddleofthecloudc). The cloud and the mesh must be selected together because the mesh will be refined with the points in the cloud. As you can see, it is the same command as the one described in the Exercise: Create a 3D mesh of the Samothrace Victory.

One of the main parameters to obtain the current mesh was: **Interpolate new points** with 0.05 mm for the **Deviation error**. If we want to further refine the mesh, we have to reduce this deviation error.

Enter for example:

- Choose **Refine with deviation error**
- 0.02 mm for the **Deviation error.**
- 0.2 mm for the **Minimum triangle size**
- 0.5 mm for the **Distance**
- **No free border modification**, so that we can very easily merge all the parts at the end

![image2019-9-16_16-36-39.png](https://cdn.document360.io/820e11db-8ed5-45ae-ac86-f6b77dcb2aa7/Images/Documentation/image2019-9-16-16-36-39.png)

The refined mesh contains many more triangles than the original mesh

Click **Preview** and **OK, Exit** to validate. The wing is now refined. Change the representation to **Flat + Wire** for example, and compare the triangle size on the new wing and on the rest of the mesh. You will see that their sizes are smaller.

### Reduce the number of triangles

Sometimes you need to reduce the number of triangles if:

- you want to export a very light mesh, or
- you do not need a lot of details on your mesh.

Select the mesh **Wing 2**. Then launch the command [Reduce](/v1/docs/cyclone-3dr-meshreducec). This command contains two main options as there are two methods to reduce a mesh:

- **Control the deviation**: means that you enter a maximum deviation; the software will minimize the number of triangles and respect the given deviation.
- **Keep the aspect**: means that you enter a number of triangles; the software will reduce the mesh in order to respect this number.

Usually, the **Control the deviation** method gives a better result. So select this option, and then:

- Enter 0.5 mm for the **Deviation,**
- Select the options **Optimize vertices position** and **Try to preserve equilaterality,**
- Deselect the option **Reduce on free borders** in order not to modify the external border, and
- Select the option **Preserve sharp edges**, and set the **Angle between facets** to 10° and the **Specific deviation** to 0.05 mm.

Then click **Preview** to see the result. The given reduction rate is 56.02 %, it means than we divided the mesh size approximately by 2.