How do I Select Edges Between Material IDs?

MAXScript FAQ > Working With Editable Polys > How do I Select Edges Between Material IDs?

A user asked:

I want to select the edges between different Material IDs in an Editable Poly object.

Answer:

The following code implements a possible solution:

SCRIPT

macroScript SelMatIDEdges category: "MXS Help"
(
--The ActionItem will only be enabled when a single object with
--Editable_Poly base object is selected:
on isEnabled return
 selection.count == 1 and classof selection[1].baseobject == Editable_Poly
--When executed,
on execute do
(
 theEP = selection[1].baseobject --get the base object of the selected object
 edgeSelArray = #() --init. an empty array to collect the edges
 eCount = polyOp.getNumEdges theEP --get the total number of edges
 for edge = 1 to eCount do --loop through all edges
 (
  --get the faces sharing the current edge
  theFaces = (polyOp.getFacesUsingEdge theEP #(edge)) as array
  --if there are two faces sharing the edge,
  if theFaces.count == 2 do
  (
   --compare their Material IDs. If different, collect the edge
   if polyOp.getFaceMatID theEP theFaces[1] != polyOp.getFaceMatID theEP theFaces[2] do
    append edgeSelArray edge
  )--end if
 )--end loop
 --After checking all edges, select the collected ones
 polyOp.setEdgeSelection theEP edgeSelArray
 max Modify Mode-- switch to modify panel
 modPanel.setCurrentObject theEP-- go to the BaseObject level
 subObjectLevel = 2--and go to Edge SubObject level to show the result
)--end on execute
)--end macroScript

A Box primitive has 6 Material IDs assigned to its 6 sides. In this example, a box with 4x4x4 segments was converted to Editable Poly. Then the above script was executed.

See Also