Fewest features to create a hexagonal surface

jeff_mcaffer · February 4

In the context of another problem, I needed to create some flat surfaces that have "complex" perimeters. I'll use a hexagon here but the real surfaces may have more complex perimeters. I tried a few things in this document flat surface | offset surface.

Extruding a surface sounds enticing but that make surfaces out of the perimeter elements not the enclosed shape. similarly for "thin" extrusions
Extruding solid and deleted the unneeded faces leaving just the top (or bottom) surface. That works but for complex perimeters, there can be many faces to delete.
Extruding a solid, then offset the face you want and deleted the extruded part. That's just three features but still seems like (two) more than would/should be required.

Question is, what's the "right" or "simplest" way. I've not done a lot of surface modelling so am surely missing something… Feels like doing a "solid" extrude with a blind depth of 0 would be a (somewhat) intuitive way of thinking about it.