Introduction
A sketch is flat. The operations in this section turn it into a solid and then reshape that solid. Each one is a button on the toolbar with a docked dialog (or, for the pick tools, a small value panel), and each one writes a statement to the part file that you can read, edit and chain methods on.
Selection & Filters
Fillet, chamfer, shell, color, connectors and sketches on faces all need to be told which faces or edges. In the viewport you click them. In the file that click becomes one of three things: an accessor on the feature that made the geometry, a select() with a filter, or a filter passed straight to the operation. This page covers how picking works and what it writes.
Extrude
Extrude pulls a closed sketch profile along the sketch plane's normal into a solid. It is the operation behind most parts: a plate, a boss on a plate, a pocket in the plate. The same dialog adds material, removes it, or keeps the result as a body of its own.
Revolve
Revolve turns a sketch profile around an axis into a solid of revolution — a shaft, a knob, a rim, anything you would make on a lathe. The profile must lie in a plane that contains the axis, and it should not cross it.
Sweep
Sweep moves a profile along a path to make a solid: pipes, rails, handles, cable runs — anything that follows a curve. It takes two sketches, a profile and a path, and they should lie on different planes.
Loft
Loft blends two or more sketch profiles on different planes into one smooth solid. Reach for it when the cross-section changes along the length — a vase, a duct that goes from rectangular to round, a hopper.
Shell
Shell hollows a solid into walls of a given thickness. You pick the faces to remove; they become the openings. A box becomes a tray, a cylinder becomes a cup.
Fillet
Fillet rounds edges with a given radius, replacing the sharp edge with a smooth transition between its two faces.
Chamfer
Chamfer bevels edges with a flat cut — the angled transition machinists put on every edge a hand or a part will meet.
Wrap
Wrap takes a flat sketch and bends it onto a cylindrical or conical face — like a label on a bottle — then raises it from the surface by a thickness. It is the tool for embossed logos, engraved text, and any feature that has to follow a curved wall.
Rib
Rib turns an open sketch line (the spine) into a wall of a given thickness that grows until it meets the surrounding solid. It is the tool for stiffening webs inside shelled parts: draw one line where the web goes, and the rib finds the walls by itself.
Helix
Helix creates a helical wire — the curve that springs, threads and coils are built from. On its own it renders as a wire; sweep a profile along it to make material.