There is a "Merge" command in MoI. Either setup a shortcut key with the command as Merge, or hit tab and type Merge.

I was curious, so decided to see if I could patch the bottle in MOI that was originally posted. The result looks OK.

>But the edges of all the trimming boundaries are shown in MoI unless you have decided to hide them yourself<
Ok, those edges was hided.

Hi Steve, Thanks for that. Well, your technique up to the network is exactly the same as mine so I'm glad I was on the right track. I didn't think to add extra lines to help the network though, that's a great idea. Also, I had no idea there was a Merge command either, so all my joined curves refused to blend nicely like yours do.
Cool, this thread has turned into a bit of a monster but I've learned a lot!

Roger

Hi Roger,

>>Also, I had no idea there was a Merge command either,<<

It does save a lot of time/work. You could get similar results without that (and in V1) but it means creating a single closed spline for cutting out the hole (making sure the start/end of the spline is at a corner point), then the lip would need to be made from a larger surface, which again would need to be trimmed with a single spline. Certainly not for the faint-hearted :-)


So where is the next model to look at :-)


- Steve

OK, I last post here ( I hope) but I just had to say how great the Merge command is! It's totally wiped out my biggest frustration with MOI, namely, not being able to do blend surfaces where the edges are split. The Merge function makes it a doddle. I've made a shortcut key and now my surfaces are blending quicker and easier than Rhino's. Yay! No more worrying about selecting edge chains or all that malarkey, just merge 'em together and blend away...

Roger

Hi Roger,

>>I've made a shortcut key and now my surfaces are blending quicker and easier than Rhino's. Yay! No more worrying about selecting edge chains or all that malarkey, just merge 'em together and blend away...<<


Rhino does have a "MergeEdge" command (Edge tools). The edge chains in Rhino(for such as surface blending) are more for selecting multiple edges spanning different surfaces.

I do hope Michael will add an option to automatically merge a complete edge rather than (or in addition to) having to select each part of the surface edge to merge, as with the bottle, there are some very small broken(split) edges that can be missed when merging, so a need to zoom right in to check out the edge to make sure all the edge as actually been selected.


- Steve

Hi Steve, with the Merge command you can also select an entire object instead of individual edges, in which case it will merge all mergeable edges in the whole object.

So that may be useful for cases where you are worried about tiny edges.

But it would probably be good to have another mode for MoI's merge command though for the case where you have selected just a single edge - in that case I could merge it with the next edge over from the end closest that you clicked on. That could help to deal with tiny edges if you only want to merge things in one particular area of the model instead of everything. I'll added that to my list to look into for the future.

But with a regular model it is pretty likely that a full merge of everything would be what you want, so just select the whole object and that will happen.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

>>with the Merge command you can also select an entire object instead of individual edges, in which case it will merge all mergeable edges in the whole object.<<

I had missed that possibility. Have just looked, and that works fine.

Thanks,


- Steve