Good day.
Quick question is there a script to simulate weld beads?
Is this possible as a addon in the fillet/ chamfer menu? I made something to replicate with array...however it would be nice to select create and move on with other tasks.

I looked at some sheetmetal programs it seems slow imo to create the ideas in my head.
The question would be I have 3d object (pic attached) is there a way to select all the surfaces and line them up in a single plane? unfold kind of.
This way all the parts could send in another application to be cnc cut.

3d boolean merge ... cutting object in 3d view...I know that I could create 3d plane and boxes to cut out shapes which I did.(but time consuming)
and also there is a polycut scipt however this crashes and will not work. if there is another option if there is another way ...let me know.

Thank you!

A quick search on google shows some texture/ bumpmaps/ render in Keyshot. (*.ksp files)
https://forum.keyshot.com/index.php?topic=20286.0

https://oxfjord.gumroad.com/l/CADweld ($10) <<<This one is free, see next link. (Type weldme in the discount page.)
https://www.behance.net/gallery/68942511/FREE-Weld-textures-and-tutorial-for-CAD-users
Note: there are even some MoI/Rhino .3dm files in the geometry folder. Looks like they do a fillet/chamfer, to which keyshot will place the texture. (?)
This looks like a cool method, IMHO
There is also an excellent video... https://youtu.be/LpDFg1rh_nE

There are some hits re Blender.
And solidworks...

- Brian

Hi Matadem,

re:
> Quick question is there a script to simulate weld beads?

You might try drawing a circle and then using using Construct > Sweep to sweep the circle around edge curves to make a tube.

There is a Pipe script that automates that here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1463.48

But that may look too clean, if you want a realistic looking weld bead that's probably something that would work better in a pollygon mesh brush sculpting type program rather than in a CAD program like MoI. Do a web search for something like: zbrush weld bead to get some examples.


> Is this possible as a addon in the fillet/ chamfer menu?

Not likely, it would be a kind of odd thing to try and incorporate in a CAD program because CAD geometry is not suited for making geometry with high frequency bumps and lumps in it, that fits better with polygon modeling geometry.


> The question would be I have 3d object (pic attached) is there a way to select
> all the surfaces and line them up in a single plane? unfold kind of.

There isn't any tool in MoI for doing that but there are other programs that could do that for you. Check out some previous discussion here for some links:
http://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5550.1
http://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5463.1
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3042.8

Some other discussion here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=8126.1

Some other programs to check out are Form-Z and AutoPol unfold:
https://www.autopol.com/products/unfold/

And also Alibre has some sheet metal tools too I think.


re:
> 3d boolean merge ... cutting object in 3d view...I know that I could create 3d plane and boxes to cut out shapes which I did.(but time consuming)

You can try this script to set the construction plane to the current 3D view direction, then the regular draw tools will draw in that view plane:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2599.4

- Michael

Got the cutting in the 3d view working and it is exactly what I was looking for!

Thank you!