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I have a .STL file and all of the faces have been converted to triangles so there are hundreds of long thin triangles.

Is there a effective way to select all of the faces in a small area? Something like a circle and when you click every face under that circle is selected.

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3 Answers 3

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You can toggle selecting all elements with A.

Some other basic selection tools are:

  • Circle select (C), which allows you to select with a brush:

    enter image description here

  • Border select (B), which allows you to select with a rectangular region:

    enter image description here

  • Lasso select (CtrlLMB), which allows you to select with a free form region:

    enter image description here

To select all elements under the cursor, you can either select in Wireframe view (Z), or disable Limit selection to visible in 3D view > Header:

enter image description here

Otherwise only visible elements will be selected. (Elements behind other geometry will be ignored).

Also see the wiki for more info about selecting.

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  • $\begingroup$ If you have wireframe off will it only select the visible faces? $\endgroup$
    – Qwertie
    Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 5:49
  • $\begingroup$ Ok I tried it my self and turning wire frame off works $\endgroup$
    – Qwertie
    Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 6:13
  • $\begingroup$ How do I get out of the selecting mode after I'm done selecting? $\endgroup$
    – clickbait
    Commented Feb 18, 2017 at 0:35
  • $\begingroup$ @narawagames Right click or escape $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Feb 18, 2017 at 1:28
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While you did ask for a specific way to select faces, there are other options that may be helpful with what you want to do. These options change depending on selection mode, shown options should be available in face select mode.

In the select menu you can select all triangles, EDIT: This first option is available through an addon called Mesh: Select Tools and is only available when this addon is enabled. While it is still listed under testing and isn't included with release versions of blender it is available from the blender git repositories

enter image description here

or faces with a similar size or number of sides.

enter image description here

Most likely what you want to do is convert all those triangles to quads. Even if you select the entire mesh you can convert tris to quads from the mesh menu. While this won't always convert 100% of the triangles it may get you a lot closer with little effort.

enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ The answer is using an addon and should include the name of the addon to enable. $\endgroup$
    – ideasman42
    Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 22:30
  • $\begingroup$ Right. I'm so used to having them there all the time I overlooked what's from an addon. $\endgroup$
    – sambler
    Commented Nov 21, 2013 at 13:26
  • $\begingroup$ @sambler can u plz update the link to the addon the link show the that the file is deleted $\endgroup$
    – atek
    Commented Nov 8, 2016 at 11:31
  • $\begingroup$ Most of the mesh select tools was merged into mesh: Edit Tools2 There is also now Select->Select All by Trait->Select Faces by Sides where you can select faces based on the number of sides they have. $\endgroup$
    – sambler
    Commented Nov 8, 2016 at 16:42
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You can also use the lasso select tool by pressing Ctrl, left clicking and dragging: enter image description here

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