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I need to create test file for my program. But it only accepts polygons with 3 vertices - triangles as input. How can I convert all polygons of some object into triangles?

I know how to select all faces, but how to split them into triangles.

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2 Answers 2

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You can select all the faces and go to Face > Triangulate Faces in the 3D View header (or just press Ctrl+T for the same effect) while in Edit Mode.

As ideasman42 pointed out in the comments, Face > Poke Faces will also triangulate the mesh by adding a vertex in the center of each face and fan-filling around the vertex, it may give preferred results for certain cases, for example, cylinder caps.

You could also add a 'Triangulate' modifier to the object and apply it:

Visualisation of the two methods:

Triangulate and Poke Faces Visualisation

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    $\begingroup$ One other method, Mesh -> Faces -> Poke Faces, maybe worth adding to answer. $\endgroup$
    – ideasman42
    Nov 26, 2014 at 15:40
  • $\begingroup$ @ideasman42 How does Poke Faces actually differ from triangulation? What else does it do? $\endgroup$
    – nanofarad
    Nov 26, 2014 at 23:50
  • $\begingroup$ edited answer explaining what poke-faces does, $\endgroup$
    – ideasman42
    Nov 27, 2014 at 0:04
  • $\begingroup$ Another method would be: Mesh -> Clean up -> Split Non-Planar Faces, then set Max angle to 0. $\endgroup$ Nov 27, 2014 at 14:22
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There is also an easy way to do it through Blender's Python API:

bpy.ops.mesh.quads_convert_to_tris(quad_method='FIXED', ngon_method='BEAUTY') #if you want a faster way

or

bpy.ops.mesh.quads_convert_to_tris(quad_method='BEAUTY', ngon_method='BEAUTY') #If you want nicer cuts
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    $\begingroup$ Is there a way to do this without bpy.ops so the context doesn't matter? (given the object whose mesh should be triangulated) $\endgroup$
    – Nathan
    Jan 21, 2020 at 21:49

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