Hi Burr, that kind of display most likely means that you've got a kind of slightly lumpy/bumpy surface.

When the bumps are small in size, the regular display mesher will not always be able to pick up on them all that well and you'll get that kind of slightly darkened bands where the bumps are at.

One method you can use to rule out a display problem is to export to a mesh format like OBJ and turn the mesh density up to a very high level by using the "Divide larger than" setting, like this:



Then switch the Display option on that mesh dialog to Display:Shaded and you'll be able to see a higher fidelity view of the surface. Also try switching Metallic lighting on and off - bumps do get exaggerated with metallic lighting on, but it kind of makes for a more busy display as well and sometimes the less busy regular shaded display can help to focus in on the shaping.

Then when you're done looking at it, just push escape or push the Cancel button to cancel the export instead of actually writing the file. If you do this frequently you can set up a keyboard shortcut with the command part as:
SaveAs c:\test.obj
that will supply a dummy filename to use with the SaveAs command as part of the shortcut key so you won't have to see the file dialog.



> And a second question would be if there would be anything
> for me to gain in my model, after i get deeper into it, by
> running seperate on what would be now many surfaces and
> running shrink on the trimmed surfaces and rejoining into a solid?

ShrinkTrimmedSrf can actually work fine on joined surfaces as well, so you don't need to do a separate first before doing it.

The main thing that it can do for you is to reduce file size, since it will reduce the amount of data that each surface is using. But on the other hand it also makes doing object repair type tasks like untrimming and retrimming things a bit different - after you shrink it you won't be able to do an untrim to recover the full original surface anymore, you'll only be able to get the shrunken surface.

There is no hard and fast single rule about whether to shrink things or not under normal circumstances. But if you are doing something like cutting out a tiny fragment from some monstrously large and complex surface, then it's a good idea to shrink it though so that the little fragment won't be carrying around the monster huge surface underneath it.

- Michael