
## Clone
This creates a deep copy of the original mesh and saves memory by sharing the geometry. Each clone can have its own material and transformation.  Operations that manipulate the vertex data will be applied to all shared geometries.  If you need to make independent changes to a clones geometry you must call a method like ```clone.makeGeometryUnique()``` which will disconect the shared geometry and allow you to treat the clone as its own mesh/geometry.

```javascript
const box1 = BABYLON.MeshBuilder.CreateBox("box1", {height: 1, width: 0.75, depth: 0.25, updatable: true});
const box2 = box1.clone("box2");
box1.position.x = -1;
box2.position.x = 1;
```


Note that as of v5.0, cloning a mesh with skeleton will assign said skeleton to the clone, ie, the skeleton is shared. If your clone does not need a skeleton, simply set it to null.
```javascript
clone.skeleton = null;
```
Alternatively, if your clone needs a skeleton, simply clone's the source mesh's skeleton.
```javascript
clone.skeleton = mesh.skeleton.clone();
```

## Examples
<Playground id="#QMFPPE" title="Cloning Example 1" description="Simple example showing shared geometry by scaling one geometry by 2." isMain={true} category="Mesh"/> Shows shared geometry by scaling one geometry by 2.  

``` ```
<Playground id="#QMFPPE#1" title="Cloning Example 2" description="Simple example showing transformation by scaling of 2 only changes one mesh."/> Shows transformation by scaling of 2 only changes one mesh.  

``` ```
<Playground id="#QMFPPE#2" title="Cloning Example 3" description="Simple example of clones with different materials."/> Different materials.  



## Using the Solid Particle System to Copy Meshes
There is more to the Solid Particle System (SPS) than just producing multiple copies of a mesh and these are considered in full in the Particles section. The SPS places multiple copies of a mesh all together into just one mesh. This means that instead of multiple draw calls there is just one draw call for the single mesh.

The SPS is a single updatable mesh with the same properties as any other Babylon.js mesh.

In order to produce multiple copies of a mesh you follow this script

Example :
```javascript
SPS = new BABYLON.SolidParticleSystem("SPS", scene);  //create the SPS
const tetra = BABYLON.MeshBuilder.CreatePolyhedron("tetra", {}); //create the mesh
SPS.addShape(tetra, 1500);      // add as many copies as you want to the SPS
tetra.dispose(); //dispose of the original mesh
const spsMesh = SPS.buildMesh();  //builds the SPS mesh

//Set the function to initialise the particle properties
SPS.initParticles = () => {
    for (let p = 0; p < SPS.nbParticles; p++) {
        const particle = SPS.particles[p]  
        particle.position.x = BABYLON.Scalar.RandomRange(-50, 50);
        particle.position.y = BABYLON.Scalar.RandomRange(-50, 50);
        particle.position.z = BABYLON.Scalar.RandomRange(-50, 50);
    
        const scale = BABYLON.Scalar.RandomRange(0.5, 1.5);
        particle.scale.x = scale;
        particle.scale.y = scale;
        particle.scale.z = scale;

	        particle.rotation.x = BABYLON.Scalar.RandomRange(0, Math.PI);
	        particle.rotation.y = BABYLON.Scalar.RandomRange(0, Math.PI);
	        particle.rotation.z = BABYLON.Scalar.RandomRange(0, Math.PI);
    }
} ;


SPS.initParticles(); //call the initialising function
SPS.setParticles(); //apply the properties and display the mesh
```

## Example
Copying a tetrahedron: <Playground id="#GKUCQP" title="Copying a Tetrahedron" description="Simple example of copying a tetrahdedron." image="/img/playgroundsAndNMEs/PGNMEProceduralTexture.jpg"/>



## Copies, Clones and Instances

Often you want to save memory or draw calls when rendering a scene. There are several methods to do this using clones, instances, thin instances and the solid particle system. Each of which provides advantages and disadvantages.