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I’ve been trying to slide and extrude a hexagon, but I can’t get past this simple problem. I tried to extrude an edge, but it extrudes without following the hexagon’s angle. So far, I’ve managed to do a vertex slide using C to clamp, but I cannot get this to work with extrude.

Here is a sketch of what I want to achieve.

Enter image description here

EDIT:

As asked, I’m posting the result of the solution Marty Fouts suggested. I enabled shadows and perspective so you can understand what happens. What I did here was simply move the original hexagon edge up. Now you can see it unfortunately doesn’t intersect the shape, as intended.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Hello :). The fastest way would probably be to use a custom orientation. $\endgroup$ Commented May 25, 2021 at 6:33
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    $\begingroup$ Hi! 🙂 Thanks for your comment. However, I’m not sure I understand. Would you mind explaining a bit further? $\endgroup$ Commented May 26, 2021 at 13:09
  • $\begingroup$ Hey :). Almost the same case as here: Extrude face along angle. In your case, select the two vertices to create the custom orientation. $\endgroup$ Commented May 26, 2021 at 15:23

2 Answers 2

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The trick is to use some supporting geometry. Rather than extruding, add a face and use the knife tool to make an additional edge:

add a face

Use the knife too to add an edge

If you use 'c' with the knife tool you'll get a perpendicular edge.

Now loop slide your new edge with 'C':

starting the loop slide

after the loop slide.

If you don't want to add and then remove faces, you can select the two edges that are adjacent to the edge you want to extend and subdivide them:

subdivided adjacent face

then use 'f' to connect the two new vertices:

adding a new edge

and do the loop slide:

enter image description here

Also, start the edge slide with 'gg' and then move the edge slightly before entering 'C' so that Blender knows which direction you want to extend in.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you very much for helping me with this. However, there must be something I must have missed. When I lower the original hexagonal edge on the Z axis after doing those operations, I see that this edge isn’t intersecting between the original hexagon and the new outer edge. When looking at this shape using the Front View, it looks like a "J". Sorry, it’s difficult to explain without a picture. 😕 $\endgroup$ Commented May 25, 2021 at 2:54
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    $\begingroup$ Could you edit the original question and add some screenshots to it? $\endgroup$ Commented May 25, 2021 at 13:57
  • $\begingroup$ There you go. Please let me know what you think. Thanks! 🙂 $\endgroup$ Commented May 26, 2021 at 13:07
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    $\begingroup$ You are not using the knife tool the way I described, so you are creating a new edge that is adjacent to the original surface rather part of it. You would probably be better off subdividing the two edges and then using f to join the two new vertices as in my second example. $\endgroup$ Commented May 26, 2021 at 14:56
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I don't think it would be possible to implement a general Extrude operator that would work the way you want. If there were more than 2 edges to be brought out, they might contradict one another.

Here's one way of using the shipped 'TinyCAD' add-on as an alternative to @Marty Fout's answers ... There are others, and this solution is certainly no better than his... (it's maybe even a bit nutty :D)

enter image description here

  1. Use TinyCAD to create a vertex at the intersection of your two edges
  2. ShiftS put the cursor there, and ensure it's the Transform Pivot point
  3. E extrude the facing edge and drop it with a right-click
  4. S scale the extrusion towards the cursor.
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