Michael,
The directX install did the trick. I'm up and running. Yippy.
Dave

Michael,
I'm up and running.

Now I have a different question.

I want to change the 3d perspective and I'm using the Alt LMB to accomplish that. Those buttons allow me to pitch and roll. I want to yaw my view. Is there any way to get the 3D view to Yaw?
Dave

He's my success. Still a little modeling to do, but I'm happy so far. Great software. My poor old computer at home is so slow. This model really bogs it down.

Here's the new model, a real life flat foam version and a the computer image of it from the CNC software.

Hi Dave, I'm glad you're back up and running! Somehow your DirectX installation got hosed during that crash. It's a good thing I have that crash dump mechanism to help track down the cause of a crash, otherwise I probably wouldn't have guessed that was the problem.

> I'm downloading the direct X driver and installing right now. The crash I experienced
> was the type with a black screen and no mouse or keyboard response. I had to power
> down. So I can imagine it would damage files.

A severe full system crash like that is usually only possible if a driver is doing something bad.

If it seems to happen again or you have any system instability, you should probably update the video driver. If you do get to that point let me know and I can assist you with finding a good version.

But if you don't have any further problems you can just use what you currently have.

- Michael

> I want to change the 3d perspective and I'm using the Alt LMB to
> accomplish that. Those buttons allow me to pitch and roll. I want to
> yaw my view. Is there any way to get the 3D view to Yaw?

You mean like tilt towards the left or the right while still looking forward along the same direction?

There isn't any way to set that using the mouse, but if you really really want to tilt the view you can do it by going to Options / View / 3D view angles, and type in an angle under "Tilt angle". I could probably also figure out how to set up a keyboard shortcut that would tilt to the left or right with a keypress, let me know if you would like me to figure that out.

- Michael

> He's my success. Still a little modeling to do, but I'm happy so far.

Cool, it looks like it is coming along really well!


> My poor old computer at home is so slow. This model really bogs it down.

One thing that might help is go to Options / View, and under the "Meshing parameters" section at the top, set "Mesh angle" to 20 (instead of the default 10), and uncheck "Add detail to inflections".

This will make the shaded display have fewer polygons in it, which will make it look sort of more jaggedy on the screen but can help speed the display up a bit too.

On that same options page you can also turn off showing hidden-line curves and edges, that will also speed things up a notch but it will make it harder to select some edges since they won't be displayed through the model like they normally are.

A lot of times an older computer can be juiced up quite considerably by adding some additional RAM and a newer video card. If you've got a really old video card, even one of the really inexpensive newer generation ones (like around $40) will speed up the screen redraw quite a lot. I can give you some suggestions on upgrading your machine if you are interested.

- Michael

Michael,
I would describe the tilt as a rudder kick when flying a airplane. More specifically, the model would spin upon the z axis. If you can do a keyboard script, that would be great. I would love to see how you do that with moi.
thanks for your help.
Dave

Thanks for the tips on how to speed up the redraw times. I was sure where the main effort is, the solid generation or the display generation. Adding ram memory is probably my best bet, but a new graphic card is probably a good idea too.

Its good to get something created. I'm sure glad you had that crash file stored away. That was great foresight on your part.

> I would describe the tilt as a rudder kick when flying a airplane. More
> specifically, the model would spin upon the z axis. If you can do a
> keyboard script, that would be great. I would love to see how you do that with moi.

Hi Dave, if I understand correctly, basically the left-to-right mouse motion should be giving you that kind of a result, it doesn't sound like you want the "tilt to left or right" type motion that I was talking about scripting...

You can use Alt+left button like you mentioned before, or you can right-click and drag for that same thing.

Here's what a left-to-right mouse motion should give you, the line pointing up is the world z axis:



- Michael

The Yaw as you illustrate works today. It's weird because I tried that mouse method and I couldn't get a yaw. Now it works great. It's probably me.

I have another problem.
I can't get the Union to work. There are 4 parts to this model, L&R wings and two bodies. I can't get them to Union. The program acts like it performing the calcs and I can select the objects ok, it calculates, but when I get control again, the parts remain separate. Any idea? I try it just two at a time, and all 4 at a time. No joy.
Thanks,
Dave

Hi Dave, is it possible for you to post your model so I can check it out?

One thing that will mess up booleans is if your surfaces intersect themselves, like if they fold around on themselves. It kind of looks like you might possibly have that kind of situation. If you can post your model (or send it to me at moi@moi3d.com) I can examine it and see if that is what is happening.

- Michael

File sent via email.

Another question. When you review the wingtips, you will see that the thickness is very thin. I'd like to grab the panels and thicken them artificially to make them stronger. Is that easy to do?

Hi Dave, I haven't received the model in e-mail yet, can you please try sending it again?

> I'd like to grab the panels and thicken them artificially to make
> them stronger. Is that easy to do?

You can use Transform / Scale / Scale1D to scale things up along one direction, that might help.

There are some instructions and screenshots on how to use it here: http://moi3d.com/beta/moi_command_reference2.zip

- Michael

Michael,
The email system choked on the file. I guess I should have guessed, since the file is gigantic. I'll try sending it again.
DAve

Michael, The file is 16 megs and both email and this forum chokes on that size.

The file is on it way via www.yousendit.com.

Hi Dave, I got the file.

But unfortunately surfaces created in this way are basically unable to be intersected with other surfaces for things like boolean operations.

The bendy trailing edge is a really complex curve as far as sweep rails go - combined with a really dense profile curve, that has resulted in a very complex surface. That's why it is working so slow and the file size is so large, the surface is really dense with control points.

To see this, you can select it and use Edit / Separate to break it into individual surfaces. Then select one of them and use Edit/Show pts, you will see a really dense sea of points there...

You basically can't use sweep with such a complex bendy rail.... Well, you can use it, but the result is just not going to be boolean-able, it will have too much torquing and kind of folding over itself. It drives the intersector crazy to try and track all that when calculating the intersection with a different surface which is part of the calculations for booleans.

It is quite difficult to make a sort of subtly bubbling kind of surface like this in MoI, you've basically got some little wavy and ripply details. MoI's tools are more based around creating broader more gradually curved surfaces, not so much things with small detailed ripples and bumps in them.

I'd recommend doing this in a polygon-based subdivision modeler like Silo for instance, this kind of detailing is kind of closer to organic type modeling than industrial/mechanical style modeling...

Also like I mentioned in my other post, a system based more on raised relief work like ArtCAM would probably do a much easier job of this than MoI as well.

- Michael

Michael,
Just a note to show you my little success. Trying to get a home modeling and CNC station going, requires lots of learning.
Here's a result using the model you provided.

I'm still acquiring the proper bits for machining small parts like this one. The model is only 6 inches long in this case. The bits used were .062 diameter, flat bottomed.

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