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Polysweeper

The Polysweeper addon allows you to make profiles on selected faces. Not only profiles for frames but it can be everything. Think of it a shaping a boring flat faceloop in a something more exciting shape. You can use it as a modeling tool an merges the vertices very nice and the mesh stays manifold.

While the use of some addons need brings some clean-up work, this is not the case with the polysweeper addon. For example you can add a subsurf without seeing artifacts. So this addon falls under a categorie “No Remesh need”.

How to use the Polysweeper addon?

For some reason I struggled a lot using the addon, but now that there are good examples of how to use it, we can avoid that. Below some tips that makes it easier to understand the workflow:

The Profiles:
The profiles need to be 1 face only. If need, press x, then limited dissolve.
Make the profile in front view. (ZX plane).
Apply Transformations. (Ctrl + A).
There must be only 1 edge on the left of the profile.

The Workflow:
The Set profile button can be confusing at first. You need to press Set Profile twice. The first time is to select the profile, and the second press is to get out of the selection mode.
The Prof_Obj field (N-panel > Polysweeper), is to pick the object with profiles. There can be more profiles in one object.
Once all is set, simply enter your mesh in Edit mode, select a face loop, and press Polysweep. (N-panel > Rastart > Polysweep).
Mind that the 3D cursor decides the direction (Z) of the profile. You might want to place the cursor (Shift + Rightclick) first.

Basic Operations Video by Rastart

Where to download the Polysweeper addon?

There are two versions of the polysweep addon. The free version (0.5) is available on Blenderartists.org. And the paid version is available on Gumtree. (0.6 at the moment of writing). The paid version has crease edge features and planar mode which are not discussed in this article.