title: How to Separate Objects Contained Within a Single 3D Mesh
body: <p>What is the name of the process or feature that I might find in a 3D mesh application that can take a single mesh and organize it into collections of one or more distinct meshes such that:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>There exists a path from any one vertex in one collection to any other vertex in the same collection, and </p></li>
  <li><p>There exists NO path from any one vertex in any one collection to any other vertex in any other collection.</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>As a specific example of my question, below is a rendering of a single mesh for a telephone (done by someone else).  Presumably, the receiver, the cord and telephone are separate objects (e.g. no vertex in the receiver is reachable from any vertex in the cord or telephone, no vertex in the cord is reachable from any vertex in the receiver or telephone and no vertex in the telephone is reachable from any vertex in the receiver or cord).</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/44kdz.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/44kdz.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
  
  <p>When 3D printing, I'd like to print the receiver and telephone separately and not print the cord at all.</p>
  
  <p>I imagine that some mesh applications contain functionality to separate these objects as I've described above, but not having any experience working with meshes, I don't know the name of the feature I'm looking for.</p>
  
  <p>Additionally, and a little off-topic, can anyone identify some applications that contain this functionality.</p>