Alternative to the skin modifier - solid perferated pattern This is a problem I've encountered several times with blender and I've never found a good way of doing it - am I missing something?

I want to design a solid mesh pattern with holes - eg chicken wire, and apply/map/wrap it to form a shape.
The result needs to be a solid mesh that can be 3D printed - so a bump mask doesn't work.

I've create this using a wireframe mesh and the skin modifier, this is ok for a simple shapes but it's time consuming and doesn't work for complex shapes.




Is there an alternative method which would be printable?
You could use Array and Simple Deform modifiers:


Create a plane, subdivide it. Rotate it 45°.






Press i to inset, delete the inner faces.






Use the Snap and the Auto-Merge options to duplicate it.





Only keep one segment, duplicate it with the Array modifier.






Give it a Simple Deform modifier / Bend mode, 360° angle. If it's completely twisted it's probably because you haven't applied the rotation. You can modify the segment geometry until you're happy (add edge loops, thickness, etc).