Is there a better way of doing extruded text on a curved surface (and the height of the text following the curve) as I've outlined here?


1. make curved surface
2. make 3d text that is higher than maximum z of curve surface and lower than z of lowest of curve surface.
3. Place text on curve with some of it in above and some below the surface.
4. offset the curved surface the height of the text that you want as a result.
5. Boolean Merge (using offset curve as base and text as 2nd object).
6. Delete above surface portion of text.
7. Delete offset curved surface.
8. Boolean union it all together if you want.

thanks,

Nick

I guess this pretty much the same way.
I boolean joined the object with the text.
Created an arc matching the curve. Extruded that arc.
Did a boolean cut.
Pretty good as far as I am concerned.

Hi Nick,

I can't think of a better way in general... If your curved surface is a straight extrude along one direction, then you can work with curves instead of surfaces (like offset the curve, and cut using the curve profile), like Brian has in his screenshots.

But for a totally general curvy surface where you want the top to follow in an offset manner, I think you've got the best way to do it there.

I've thought a little bit about trying to extend the Extrude command to handle making a protrusion or a cut into another object as a built-in function of extrude. Maybe that could include this kind of "offset cap" as an option, but there are some difficulties since that style doesn't track along with the mouse along a single direction like a regular extrude does.... It's something that I'll try to think about when I get a chance to work on Extrude in the future.

- Michael

Here is a full two way/ball curve cut of the lettering.
I duplicated the sphere and cut part of it in half and made it just a shell not a solid.
Really it should have been a large shell to the dimension of the cuts location,
Anyway I used that shell to provide the boolean cut.

Another way is to project text curves on to rounded object
then extrude - the only downside is I couldn't get MOI to cap end
so front is open see pic.

Hi clegg - for the extrude command, MoI only knows how to put a cap on a closed flat planar end.

One alternative is to use those curves to trim out small surface pieces, and then you can use extrude on the small surfaces instead.

If you extrude a surface (currently it must be made up of a single surface, not more than one surface joined together) instead of a curve, it will be capped because then MoI knows it can copy the surface to the end to construct the cap piece.

- Michael

Hi Mike

Extruded surface as you said - works a treat

Thanks

The one thing to be aware of is that the original surface still sticks around after the extrude, just like when you extrude curves the original curves stay in place.

But with the surface it is more difficult to see the original surface since it exactly overlaps with the resulting object. You may want to hit delete after you do the extrusion to remove it.

- Michael

clegg/michael. I dont seem to grasp all in your last 4 related posts--could you help, maybe graphically, explain please?
(Probably me having another "brian" day!)

Hi Brian, see if this helps:

The most basic way of using extrude (which I think you are already familiar with), is to select a curve like this:



Which then after extrusion will result in an object like this:



However, if the curve is not a flat planar curve, it won't become automatically capped at the top and bottom when doing the extrude.

There is another way that you can use extrude instead of using a curve as the initial object. It is also supported to use a surface as the initial object, like this:



After extruding, with that surface selected as the input, this object will be created:




That type of extrusion will always have a cap even if the starting surface was not planar - this is because MoI is able to make a copy of the starting surface to the other end to construct the cap in this case.

Does that make sense?

- Michael

Thanks Michael--I still can not get the working connection for doing the type though?

I tried doing a sweep of a horizontal/vertical curve to create a cutting surface as in attachments. I think this is not what is meant though either.

Hi Brian, it would go something like this:

Start with text that are curve objects (not solids), flat on a plane:



Now a curved surface over top of them:



Then select the surface and run Edit/Trim - pick the curves as the cutting objects and at the "select pieces to remove" prompt, just push "Done" or right-click to keep all the pieces. This will cause the surface to be sliced up into multiple different surfaces.

Select the inside surface pieces:



Then those can be extruded just like I was showing in that previous post:




- Michael

seems there was yet a thread about that some times ago :)

Thanks Michael---I was def not thinking like that!
Added to my Help file folder.

I hope this shows my thick scull is learning!

And!

Fine kangaroo!