Hi PaQ - probably your best bet for a kind of shelling companion program would be ViaCAD or Alibre, because those ones have geometry kernels that have good shelling in them but aren't very expensive.

You would probably get your best possible results by using SolidWorks or Pro/E for example, but you probably don't want to pay $5000 to get that function I would assume?

- Michael

arggg $5000 ... I can live without it for now :)

It's just that some weeks ago I tried to create some bottles design, something like the coke model, or any soft drink bottle ... so the outside of the bottle were easy
to create (with many booleans and fillets) ... but it was quite hard to have a good thickness for the inside part. So I was just asking myself what kind of software
they use for this.

I'll have a look to Viacad and Alibre, I'm really in love with nurbs now, so I want to explore and lean them a little more :)

Can we do think that a concept of "good form" can be given by the nurbs like in the past hull boats drawing were given by flexible battens?

Alibre Design Express is free..

Hi Pilou,

> Can we do think that a concept of "good form" can be given by
> the nurbs like in the past hull boats drawing were given by
> flexible battens?

I'm sorry not quite sure what you are asking for here Pilou, are you looking for methods to automatically analyze a surface to see if it has a good shape or not?

You might try searching the web for terms like "Surface fairing" to try and find some more information on that.

- Michael

This is pretty normal I thought ?
I usually expect this, not only in MoI, so for something like this I would usually model the form longer, shell it then trim off the ends.

Hope this helps
Cheers

< are you looking for methods to automatically analyze
No no :)
Just in the artistic meaning!
If the fillet or sweep or ...don't work it's "a bad natural form", if yes it's a "good natural form" ;) as Golden Number etc ;)
(out case of impossibilities of course)

Hi PaQ,

I would agree with Michael and suggest you try ViaCAD as your companion with MoI for shelling puposes. This program
uses ACIS kernel as opposed to Solidworks Parasolid....but it seems very good in the test I did. Alternatively, if you are
like me and also use Rhino we should have Shelling in V5...maybe an early beta will do the trick for you.

Good Luck !!

Hi Michael

I've been trying Spaceclaim LTX for Rhino, and find that to work well with shelling and filleting.
Think SC LTX not so expensive, and it takes the 3dm format in directly.

Do you know how SpaceClaim shelling compares to the shelling in programs like SolidWorks?

-Fredrik

Hi Paul,

>>>I would agree with Michael and suggest you try ViaCAD

There is currently an open beta for version 6 ( http://punchcad.com/products/viacad2d3dv6.htm)

>>>Alternatively, if you are like me and also use Rhino we should have Shelling in V5

Have you ever looked at the "power solids/booleans for Rhino" from Npower? http://www.npowersoftware.com/rhino/proverview.htm just curious as that includes shelling



- manz

NPower stopped support of their plugin after Rhino 3, so honestly that plugin is probably dead as doornails. As i mentioned earlier, i believe your rail curve has a little bend near the end. But you could also cap that object and then shell it in MoI, removing both end caps during the shell process. I think that would give you a decent shell...

jonah

Hello Steve,

>> Have you ever looked at the "power solids/booleans for Rhino" from Npower?
>> http://www.npowersoftware.com/rhino/proverview.htm just curious as that includes shelling

Yes I did try their plugin in V3 and then their shelling was hopeless !!! but that was before I actually had the need
for offsetting a complex polysurface for our water cooling design....there are so many apps available now with more
control on shelling such as different applying a different thickness to an area but not all...

ViaCAD looks interesting so far ;-)

>>NPower stopped support of their plugin after Rhino 3, so honestly that plugin is probably dead as doornails.

I was just curious. I use Rhino mainly for surfacing and have no need for booleans/shelling. I use other products for that.

>>i believe your rail curve has a little bend near the end.

Well, it is not my rail curve, but as you mention, having the "cap ends" enabled on extrude, then selecting the end caps for shelling would produce better results.


- manz

Hi Paul,

>>ViaCAD looks interesting so far

I have looked at earlier version, but that was quite a while ago, I am currently downloading, but with slow feed from their site, so will take a look later.

I will also have a look at the latest release from Alibre when I have time (I have never used that before).



- manz

Hi Steve,

>> I have looked at earlier version, but that was quite a while ago, I am currently
>> downloading, but with slow feed from their site, so will take a look later.

First impressions are good and I think it would be another good partner for MoI. Nothing
beats MoI for its slick interface and speed of use and it's ability to swap data rapidly with
Rhino is critical for us.....were sold on these two but as far as shelling without spending
££££, ViaCAD looks really cool for that purpose.

Hello there,

Well I have done a quick jump into viacad pro demo (15 days trial) ...
I get some trouble to import some 'simple' moi model, but I have to lean it a little bit more I guess.

For the moment it looks like I have to stitch every surface from the object because everything is separate ... and the stitch command return me
error messages ... so I can't really test the shell.

Hi Fredrik,

> Do you know how SpaceClaim shelling compares to the shelling
> in programs like SolidWorks?

No, I don't really know much specifically about that, but my general impression is that it is probably fairly close.

- Michael

Hi PaQ,

>>For the moment it looks like I have to stitch every surface from the object because everything is separate

When importing the 3DM, select "Auto heal solids" in the popup


- manz

Hello manz,

Auto healing failed :) ... but it seems I have a trouble in the moi object itself (I've just report it).
I did some shelling with some surface created in viacad, looks impressive so far (so are the fillets).

I will have some fun I guess :):):)

I'm quite impressed by SC. The program is doing a good job on filleting and shelling. I tried it on some quite demanding things from rhino and it worked pretty well. Not everything worked completely fluently though. In some cases it got a bit comfused.
Took about 20 mins of fiddling before I understood the workflow, but then it was surprisingly easy. It seems to demand a fast PC, as even my super quad core pc was lagging behind a bit.

Anyways, SC handles consumed faces in fillets, and also moving features across surface boundaries (in most
cases, not all of course).

SW is history based however, which has it's advntages in some cases. But if you get the geometry from someone, history can be a constraint because you have to understand the sequence in which the model was made.

I think SC LTX is a companion of Moi if you are doing mecanical design. It's also good since it makes your model "live" in the sence that you can quickly move things around and fillet here and there.
It does not have nice G1, G2, G3 fillets like Moi, and not nearly the type of surfacing tools. So I imagine for product design, that the real shape design would be done in Moi, and then later you could edit it in SC and add the "mechanical details" to it.

-Fredrik