Manifolds

So this is the last thing I was wanting inside OS. 

Enclosing a volume with surface patches including all edges connected & edges forming vertices, make me a solid volume. No extrusions for me, say goodbye to the prismatic world of solid modeling.

Multiple surface patches forming a water tight manifold:


All these surfaces were "added" to as opposed to "new" causing this manifold to be knitted together. Although these surfaces are grouped together (knitted) and behave as one, they do not have volume and are not consider a solid manifold.


The new enclose command will take surfaces and interrogate it's edges & vertices to determine if you have a manifold. At this point you can perform solid routines on your design such as adding bosses and ribs to the inside or cuts for displays and other items in your design: 


This is a fundamental design pattern for hand held injection molded parts that are comfortable to hold on to.

Getting back to surfaces requires you to delete one of the faces:


Watching the items in the bottom left corner of the screen, you can see that OS is tracking the status of your design.

One of the frustrations is dealing with a solid manifold and wanting to add something trick or cosmetically appealing. To take a solid manifold back into a surface needs the ability to detach a face from a manifold without deleting a face. 

Can someone please tell me how to detach a face from a solid manifold?