Small Stella back faces?

[SailorMike]

I've just started using the program with a view to creating wooden models. What I'm trying to figure out at present is how to see the "back faces". I expected to see them in the "Cross Section" view, but they're not there. I can see the option for selecting various color schemes for them from the "Colors" menu, but I can't actually view those surfaces. Could someone point me to a discussion of the topic, or give me some hints about how to use this feature? Thanks!

[robertw]

Back faces just refers to the back of the faces. So you can colour the back side of faces different from the front. There is no thickness to the faces, which is I think what you're after. You can display the dihedral angles between faces though, and the mitre angle which you would use to bevel edges when cutting individual faces from wood. These are displayed in either the 3D folding or 2D unfolded net views. Select from the "Nets->Show Edge Data" submenu.

[SailorMike]

Thank you for the speedy reply, Robert. My issue was that I couldn't see them at all! Further experimentation reveals that I can see the back faces in in the "exploded" view, and when I remove some polygons from the shape, I can see them through the "hole". I expected to see them in the "cross section" view, but now I realize that the slicing plane obscures my view of the back sides of the polygons.
I was going to start another thread re: angles, but since you brought it up, it seems that sometimes I get an inside angle, and sometimes an outside angle when I use the measure tool. Is there a way to specify which angle you get? Thanks again, ~Mike

[robertw]

For some uniform polyhedra, or stellations, you can see parts of a face from each side, so the back face colour would come into it then. Also as you say if you hide some faces or explode the faces apart.

I don't know what you mean about the cross-section view. Each face becomes a line in the cross-section, so the line is just given the front-face colour.

I think the measurement tool always shows angles less than or equal to 180 degrees, so always on the shorter side. So if you have a spiky polyhedron, and measure angles between the spikes, it may measure on the outside of the polyhedron. You can always subtract the angle from 360 to get the interior angle.