# How to create an equilateral triangle base prism

I'm trying to make a triangular prism in blender, my first idea was to select the top 4 verticys of a cube and merge them at the center but this made a single point on the top instead of a edge. I have tried a few other methods but couldn't get a perfect even triangular prism. What would be the best way to do this

Another ways is by adding a cube and then merging the top two edges with SX0 and then remove doubles (WR).

• Or select 2 edges in opposite side (in Edge Select mode), then Alt M > Collapse. :) Jan 15 '14 at 7:28
• The base of this prism would not be equilateral. Jan 15 '14 at 8:02
• @Garry The OP's original question did not make that a requirement. If you want equilateral, you are best off extruding a 3 vert circle as mentioned below.
– gandalf3
Jan 15 '14 at 8:15
• sin(radians(60)) or sqrt(3) / 2 for the z scale would make it equilateral. Oct 4 '17 at 19:35

If you are talking about a triangular prism, ShiftAto add a Cylinder object, then F6 to set the Vertices number to 3.

• The shape I am trying to create I think is called a triangular prism this could be done by following your first method and extruding the face Jan 15 '14 at 6:40
• @qwertie I see, I've updated my answer. If you don't need to have the top/bottom triangles being regular, then gandalf3's answer is nice, as well. Jan 15 '14 at 7:10
• I use this method with Circles quite frequently (to get equilateral triangles, pentagons, etc), and sometimes on Cylinders, as you described in your answer. It is indeed the most efficient way. Feb 6 '16 at 0:56
• F6 isn't working for me on my mac. What command does F6 equate to? Dec 2 '20 at 0:28
2. Set Vertices to 3
3. Set Radius 1 and Depth to 1

If you are trying to make an equilateral triangle prism you can first make an equilateral triangle from a square plane. Here's one way to do it: 1. add Mesh->Plane. 2. Subdivide plane twice so it's cut into 16 squares. 3. Select vertices and press F to make new edges (see picture). 4. Extrude the edges into prism and delete the remaining vertices.

• But in this way, two edges have length sqrt(17) and one has sqrt(18). So it's not really equilateral. Mar 19 '15 at 7:58

To get a prism with perfectly equal sides, do the following:

2. select the two bottom left vertices
3. press space, type snap cursor to selected, hit enter
4. set your pivot point to 3D Cursor (option on the bottom two next to Edit mode)
5. Add the two top left vertices to the selection
6. Rotate by 30 degrees
7. Repeat with the right side (-30 degrees)
8. Remove doubles

Add > Mesh > Math Function > triangle

play with the options.

Be happy!

Draw a square (plane) at (0,0,0). So the "top" two corners are (-1,1,0) and (1,1,0).

Let A = (-1,1,0) and B = (1,1,0)

Then draw two circles at A and B, scaled by 2 (use S, 2, Enter in object mode with these circles selected).

Merge the square and two circles with Ctrl+J.

Note the INTERSECTION point of your two circles, directly above the square. Call it C.

If we can connect ABC, we have a perfect equilateral triangle!! (this is step one of building the pyramid, which is just 4 copies of it rotated around).