Hi Shaun, when you can't join things that means there is a gap between them of more than the maximum Join tolerance which is 0.005 units. Right now the Network command can sometimes generate a surface that is slightly over that distance limit from its input curve - that's because of a mechanism that tries to make a lighter weight output surface to handle dense networks better.

In v3 I should be able to tighten up the fitting of just the outer edges of the Network to avoid this from happening.

But when it does happen, you can still get things joined by scaling your objects down and then doing the join and then scaling back up again - the full steps are described here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3939.2

That's what I did in this case to build the attached joined solid version of your object.

- Michael

I'll give this a shot. Thanks!

Is there a way to manually change the tolerance setting?

Also, is there any method I could use besides a Network?

I tried lofting and sweeping it from all directions but nothing would give me the shape I wanted.

Hi Shaun,

> Is there a way to manually change the tolerance setting?

No, not currently.

- Michael

Hi Shaun,

> Also, is there any method I could use besides a Network?

Well, Network is probably your best bet if you want to surface directly to those edges.

But often times instead of building something directly to the final edges you may want to instead construct a more simple broader surface and then intersect it to get the final edges (either by the Trim or Boolean commands) instead of trying to fill in things along the final edges like you're doing here.

So in a case like that you would build some kind of large rectangular rounded sheet something like shown here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4296.5

And then the rounded edge would come from a fillet instead of being directly modeled.

However, with your shape here that may be kind of difficult because the rounded lip is so pronounced and more of a primary feature of the shape.

To do an extended surface + trimming approach in your case here probably you would build the rounded lip to be a bit extended like this:



Then with the ends sticking up a bit like that you could have a large rectangular surface for the upper part, trim those to each other and put in a small fillet to smooth out the connection between them. Something along those lines anyway would allow you to build a more simple and regular surface for the upper piece.

Right now you're trying to force a surface to fit directly to a non naturally rectangular boundary which tends to be more difficult to get a good quality surface form.

- Michael

Oops I forgot to attach the solidified version in my previous post back there - here it is.

- Michael

Thanks for the model. However, for some reason I can't repeat the process.

I even scaled it down by a 10th twice.

Hi Shaun,

> Thanks for the model. However, for some reason I can't repeat the process.

Hmm, that's odd - which file are you working with where you are trying to repeat the process and it's not working, is it the first file from this thread or a file with some new surfaces you've created in it? If it's a different file can you post it please?

I just tested with the file from your first post here and it seems to join up after just 1 scale down for me.

Are you possibly scaling upwards instead of downwards? You need to enter in a scale factor of 0.1 to scale downwards.

- Michael

I got it. Don't know why it wouldn't work last night, but I have a solid now.

I hope this can be fixed soon, possibly in a point upgrade??

Anyway, thanks to all for the help!

I'm sorry to keep bothering you, but it's happening again.

My co-worker decided to change the size of the circle at the bottom. So I went back to my original curves for the bottom and repeated all the sweeping. I left the network on top alone. But now when I try to create a solid with the scaling process I can only get a joined surface, not a solid.

Nothing can be overlapping because it's all built from the same curves. Here is the new model with the modified bottom.

Well, I just got the shape I wanted but not from the previous method.

I was able to select the circle at the bottom and then the other horizontal curves and sweep them using the vertical profile curves as rails. There is some weirdness at the top where the sweep ends but the mold maker can sand that out.

While it looks like this project will work with sweeps I'm sure I'll need to use networks in the future.

thanks again fo your time helping me.

Hi Shaun, when I load your Again.3dm file, I can actually join all the pieces together there - no scaling is required.

But the result is not a solid - not because edges are too far apart though, but because one of the Network surfaces is badly formed and kind of crumpled together where it was squished to a pole point. That bad formation has made a really teeny tiny additional edge in your surface that will not get cleanly joined to the other one.

You can see it if you zoom in closely (you have to go in a fair amount, it's pretty tiny) to this area here:



If you go in a ways you can see the surface is kind of messy and folded over top of itself in that small area:



And the surface does not come to a single point - there is actually a little tiny edge in that spot:




So that surface is kind of mangled in that tiny area and that will prevent you from getting a clean join with it.

Do you have the curves that were used to create the Network? They don't seem to be in that 3DM model file - possibly the curves used to create the surface wandered apart from each other near the end where they should have all been coming to the same point - it is possible to get a kind of messy collapsed area when there is some wandering between the various curve endpoints in pole areas like that, try to make sure that the curves are all ending right at the same spot (turn on control points and edit the end of any as necessary) to then see if you can get a better quality surface.


The way I found that little tiny edge is that after the Join happened, I could see that the model was selecting all as one piece, so I knew that it was mostly joined together, but that there must be some open edge in it since the object type in the properties panel showed as "Joined srf" instead of as "solid". When this happens you then need to find which areas of the model are not joined, and there is a script that can help you with that. Set up a new shortcut key (I use the N key for "Naked edges") and for the command part paste in the script listed here:
http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/#SelectNaked

Then when you push the N key the naked edges will become selected, and if you don't immediately see which ones they are you can use the view reset to zoom to the selected objects to zoom in on it - that's how I found that teeny tiny edge in this particular case.

- Michael

That script will be handy. Thanks again for all the help.

I really like this program. I'm more of a 3D max guy, but lately I've been helping out our engineering dept. when they need organic modeling. MOI has been very useful.

Shaun,
See if your 3max at work can look into Integritywares subd to nurbs tool.. I've been interested in how this tool works.

Looks interesting. Is there a link to a demo somewhere?

Thanks. I'll need permission from our IT dept to install it so I don't know if I can try it soon. But I'll try to find an excuse to demo it on the next project.