# give 2 colors to surface mesh to differentiate the two sides of a face?

**URL:** <https://discourse.paraview.org/t/give-2-colors-to-surface-mesh-to-differentiate-the-two-sides-of-a-face/17805>\
**Category:** ParaView Support\
**Created:** [November 5, 2026, 12:08pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/give-2-colors-to-surface-mesh-to-differentiate-the-two-sides-of-a-face/17805 "2026-11-05T12:08:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kenneth\_Moreland](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/kenneth_moreland/32/15033_2.png) [@Kenneth\_Moreland](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Kenneth_Moreland)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 1:24pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/give-2-colors-to-surface-mesh-to-differentiate-the-two-sides-of-a-face/17805/2 "2026-11-05T13:24:19Z")

</div>

ParaView has a group of display options labeled **Backface Styling** where you can think of the “backface” as the “internal” side of a polygon. By default, the backface representation follows the frontface so they look the same.

 ![Screenshot 2026-11-05 at 8.17.58 AM](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/3X/a/e/ae5a64682dd3d2591934113efa53d6be51244ba7.webp)

You can change the representation of the backface (or remove backfacing polygons entirely). Once you do so, you can also change the color of the backward facing polygons.

 ![Screenshot 2026-11-05 at 8.21.38 AM](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/3X/b/2/b252cd63d42d6979008658122e39ea4e11a0d5cd.webp)

(See also [Colour different sides of a surface different colours](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/colour-different-sides-of-a-surface-different-colours/4900) .)

---

_[View the full topic](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/give-2-colors-to-surface-mesh-to-differentiate-the-two-sides-of-a-face/17805)._