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Quick start

Ten minutes, one CAD part, one clean mesh. Everything below happens in the Hardcraft N-panel and the 3D viewport.

1. Get the CAD in

Export/stream the part with the Plasticity Blender bridge as usual. Keep it raw — do not enter Edit Mode, do not separate, join or clean it.

Detection reads CAD metadata baked into the export; an edited mesh has lost it (why).

In Object Mode, panel → Import STEP (CAD). Conversion runs in a background process; the panel shows progress and, when done, one object per CAD body.

Requires the converter binary — see Install.

2. Create the retopo target

Select the CAD mesh object. The panel offers two starts:

Button What you get
New Target (fill all) Every detected patch is filled immediately. Good for a first look, and for parts that are mostly regular.
New Target (empty) An empty retopo mesh. You build it up by clicking CAD islands one at a time — the construction-first path.

Either way you land in Edit Mode on the retopo object, with the HC Target tool active and PATCH select mode on.

screenshot slot — Object Mode panel: Import STEP + New Target buttons

If gestures do nothing

The keys are tool-scoped. If the panel shows a red "HC Target tool not active" box, click Activate HC Target in it.

3. Fill patches (PATCH mode)

Press 4 for PATCH mode (Tab flips between PATCH and CURVE). Hover the CAD and the patch under the cursor highlights.

  • LMB → select the island under the cursor, built or not. Shift+LMB adds, Ctrl+LMB removes, a click on nothing clears.
  • F → fill the selection: unbuilt islands get built, built ones re-fill. With nothing selected, F fills the island under the cursor. This is the whole loop — click, F, look.
  • X → delete the selected patches.
  • Shift+G → select every patch of the same CAD surface type as the one under the cursor (all fillets of this radius…) — the way to treat a repeat feature once. STEP imports only; the bridge carries no surface types.
screenshot slot — PATCH mode: hover highlight + a filled fillet band

4. Tune the boundaries (CURVE mode)

Press 5. This is the density control that works on every patch, because the boundary is what the interior is built from — and a shared curve propagates to both patches with the weld intact.

  • Shift+Wheel — span count of the selected curves, ±1
  • Ctrl+Wheel — contour: redistribute the samples, count unchanged
  • Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V — copy the span of the curve under the cursor, paste it onto the selection; E types a number
  • C — region split across a patch (a new boundary, not an edge loop)
  • A — anchor a ring's start point (bores, round holes)

Full list: CURVE.

5. Optional: Smart-fill knobs (PATCH mode)

Back in PATCH (4), a patch filled by Smart fill exposes its interior directly through an on-surface manipulator:

Key Axis
G slide the lattice
R rotate the flow
S redistribute the nodes (count fixed)
D interior node count

Press the key twice (gg, rr, …) to drive it from the cursor instead of grabbing a handle. LMB/Enter commits, Esc/RMB reverts.

These are not universal

G/R/S/D (and the W flow guide) apply to smart fill only. A structured Quad or Loft patch has no interior of its own to move — and a frozen patch is off the parametric path — so the operator declines and tells you so. Steer those from their boundary curves instead. Details in PATCH and Fill types.

screenshot slot — CURVE mode: span labels on a boundary being tuned

6. Commit

Commit sits at the top of the panel because it is the last step of the main process: it welds the seams between patches, packs UVs if the Finalize section asks for it, strips the parametric state and leaves the final mesh. Transfer Normals is a separate button in Finalize — run it before Commit if you want the CAD's shading on the result. Look at the result before you take it downstream.

screenshot slot — before/after: CAD triangle soup vs applied retopo