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I am pretty new to Blender but I looked at some tutorials on how to build my own structure etc. I found one Youtube video at about 2:05 minutes, where they select all inner vertices with some clicks and removes them afterwards.

Can somebody help me to redo this on my objects? I have for example two cubes and they intersect each other. My next steps are joining these two cubes, I click in edit mode on Mesh > Faces > Intersect Then I choose Self intersect and now I am losing track of the video, where he does Link select and inverts the selection and then magically he just removes the selected parts...

Can somebody help me on this a little.

If I let the internal geometry stay, my printouts in the printer get holes and other ugly stuff...

EDIT

Since I got now an answer where some people up voted but it is still not working in my example.

I added a screenshot two cubes intersecting Here I have two cubes moved against each other. The answer from Gwenn suggests to use Select > Internal Faces but in my case there is only Select > Interior Faces. I guess this is a typo but it is also selecting nothing. When I click on Select > Non Manyfolds there is also no selection :-(

After following some links and checking the '3D Printing Tools' add on, I found the check function there which tells me how many problems where found in before printing (visible in the screenshot). It says no Manyfolds, maybe thats the reason. But I still have the problem of empty spaces within the 3D print where the two cubes overlap.

Again, I just created two cubes and moved them against each other until they intersect.

The only possible solution by now is to use a boolean modification, Difference and select the second cube. In this case the overlapping part gets removed from one of the cubes. Not very handy but by now the only solution which works.

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  • $\begingroup$ see "invert selection" here blender.org/manual/modeling/meshes/selecting/… $\endgroup$
    – m.ardito
    Dec 16, 2015 at 14:37
  • $\begingroup$ @m.ardito thanks, I found the invert selection in the menu as well. I am really wondering how it actually in the video works. I can not select any links or so and just move them out of my object. $\endgroup$
    – drmariod
    Dec 16, 2015 at 14:53
  • $\begingroup$ I guess he pressed CTRL + I? $\endgroup$
    – m.ardito
    Dec 16, 2015 at 15:11
  • $\begingroup$ I don't have the problem with the invert. He is doing this self intersect selection and everything afterwards is not reproducible for me. I can not select the links, not sure if I need some special settings for it, my invert afterwards is useless since I could select only the links and also I am not sure how to "just move" the selected links out of my structure. $\endgroup$
    – drmariod
    Dec 16, 2015 at 15:39
  • $\begingroup$ Beginning from the very starting point, you asked about using Mesh > Faces > Inetrsect function described by Campbell Burton. To repeate these actions on your example, with those cubes joined select all and use the function, that's all. $\endgroup$
    – Mr Zak
    Dec 17, 2015 at 22:37

3 Answers 3

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All internal faces can be selected by using Select > Internal Faces in the bar on the bottom of the 3D View in Edit Mode.

Since internal faces are Non-manifold geometry, you can also use the shortcut CtrlShiftAltM to select them, along with all other non-manifold geometry.

Once you have the offending faces selected, you can use Del>Faces to remove them without affecting the rest of your geometry.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for your help, but unfortunately this is not working in my case. I added additional information to my question. Thanks in advance! $\endgroup$
    – drmariod
    Dec 17, 2015 at 19:12
  • $\begingroup$ @drmariod If you have separate overlapping objects, use Boolean union to combine them. The method I outlined is for interior faces within a single object. $\endgroup$
    – Gwen
    Dec 17, 2015 at 20:11
  • $\begingroup$ Thats why I also tried to join my objects (I will do this in the end endways) and I hoped to remove the interior faces in one step, even if I have several objects joined. $\endgroup$
    – drmariod
    Dec 18, 2015 at 6:54
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You can use the boolean modifier. In order to use it, you first have to seperate the cubes into seperate objects. Go into edit mode, select everything with A, press P and click By loose parts.

enter image description here

You now have 2 seperate objects. Go back to object mode, select one of the objects and add a boolean modifier.

enter image description here

Select the other object under the object drop-down menu and change operation to union.

enter image description here

Apply the modifier by clicking on Apply.

enter image description here

You now have an object with the shape of both objects combined, but without the interior geometry.

enter image description here

All you have to do now is to delete the other object. Select it, and press Delete.

enter image description here

Result:

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ This is what I do at the moment, but I am using Difference. Here I no longer need to remove the second object. Or is there more advantage on union? I would love to create my object with all it's parts and then finally, in the and, remove all the internal geometries. If I do this always when I add a new object to my structure, I sometimes forgot to use the boolean modifier and I get empty space in my printout. Thats Why I look for some kind of fine-tuning in the end :-) $\endgroup$
    – drmariod
    Dec 18, 2015 at 6:52
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    $\begingroup$ The main difference is that the difference operation does not combine both objects into one, but changes one of the objects so that it fits on the other. This is most often fine for 3d printing, but technically you still end up with internal geometry. $\endgroup$
    – Ezra
    Dec 18, 2015 at 6:59
  • $\begingroup$ Good hint, I guess I will use this than instead. $\endgroup$
    – drmariod
    Dec 18, 2015 at 7:01
  • $\begingroup$ Union doesn't always remove internal geometry. Way to fix this? $\endgroup$ Aug 25, 2022 at 8:20
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In more recent versions of Blender, you can use the equivalent of the boolean modifier within Edit mode, so you don't need to separate the objects and then apply a boolean modifier pairwise, like @Ezra suggests, but can instead select your mesh, press Space, type Boolean, press Enter, followed by F6 and then, in the box that pops up, change the boolean type from Intersect to Union.

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  • $\begingroup$ when I press space, I cannot enter anything. Instead I get the context menu, with options such as 'Select box', 'Cursor', 'Move',.. I would love to do what you describe, but how? $\endgroup$ Nov 27, 2019 at 15:02

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