Hi Dave, that looks like a good result!

Stuff that has more broadly curved pieces like that will be a lot more feasible to do in MoI.

Also, you'll probably notice that the one I sent to you should probably not bog down your machine as much as your other version, that's due to using not quite such a large quantity of points in the defining curves.

One thing you might also check into - it might be possible for 2.5D type cutting that your CNC software does not really need a fully finished solid. I mean that it might be able to work fine if you have separate pieces that just stick through each other in the model instead of being actually booleaned together.

If that's true, then you may have some more freedom to construct what would normally be considered "messy" surfaces, like stuff that folds around a lot, intersects itself, etc... - stuff that you would normally want to avoid since it won't boolean later on.

- Michael

Hi Dave & Michael,

I've had situations before where a model wouldn't Boolean together & I've still been able to machine it with my mill.
In these cases, I've selected all the parts & exported them out as an STL file for the CAM program.
I used the default export settings, but increased the slider to it's maximum, which I think is a value of "3".
All of these milled models have come out fine.

Obviously you couldn't do this with a model that's for RP or to be "wax printed" or "grown", as these processes require the model to be water tight or a complete solid.

Hope this helps, Colin