Hi Danny - this new command is related to Shell or Offset, meaning that it derives a shape directly from existing surfaces and not by introducing any completely new drawn profile curves into the mix.

In the future I definitely do want to be able to do what you are showing there, but I don't think it will be part of this particular command.

Instead my current line of thought is that it would be added as an option to the Booleans.

You can already use a rectangle like that as a cutting object in the Booleans right now, but it produces a hole that goes all the way through the base object. What I'm thinking is that there could be a "Limit depth" checkbox added to the "Select objects to subtract" stage of Boolean difference, and if you checked it and had selected any closed curves as the cutting objects, then that's when you could have an additional stage to the Boolean where you could set a depth and the result would be like you are showing.

Boolean union could be used in a similar way with closed curves to make raised areas instead of indentations.

- Michael

So in Danny's Image there, if he trims that surface with his curve, then joins it together, would the new tool perform on the trimmed shape? he could then draw the curve at a larger size of the top surface offset amount.

Hi Burr, currently this new tool won't work in that situation because of the trimmed piece being flush with the surrounding surfaces.

Currently the borders of the piece are built by the intersections with neighboring surfaces - when pieces are smooth to one another they don't produce the right kind of intersections.

But you don't necessarily need this new command for that kind of a thing - you can use the current Shell command or extrusion on a trimmed out piece like that to thicken it into a solid, and then delete the front part of it.

See this for an example:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3024.4

That's not really too many steps for one part, but it would be nice to have it wrapped up to be more automatic, then you could do something like stick 50 circles all around an object and have them all make depressions with one command.

- Michael

Hi Michael

Inset command looks great. Not sure if this has been discussed already, could there be an option to keep the part cut away by the insetting? hope thats clear, it could save some steps.

regards

Jamie

Danny, that emboss is a wonderful function as well!


This whole thread has me excited thinking of the possibilities for my buildings and spaceship models with these kinds of functions in MoI!

-Will

Hi Jamie,

> could there be an option to keep the part cut away by the
> insetting? hope thats clear, it could save some steps.

You mean keep the "plug" part as a separate additional object?

Could you describe a bit about what you would do with that?

- Michael

Hi Michael

I would like to keep the 'plug' orange part in the picture to make panels. although I would need to offset inwards the surface in highlighted yellow to create a split line between the parts.

Regards

Jamie

Hi Jamie - I see, but what about instead of having an option to keep the plug as a separate object, there was something like a "grooved" option that would automatically shrink the plug down and union it to the main body?

Would that handle what you are thinking of with the plug, or would there be some other possible reason to want to have the plug all by itself?

- Michael

Hi Michael

I can see a groove option being useful. Ive attached a couple of examples, the screen is a good example of an offset then needing to be kept as a separate part. The panels on the PC are not quite even insets, could you choose drag the inset curves around to make it an uneven offset? For example making the CD drawer would need a bigger offset from the bottom than the top and sides.

Just some thoughts. its also important not to have things to complicated, Im sure you will find the balance. I like this kind of semi automation it saves a lot of time. Could inset use projected curves? combined with a groove would be great. For example the buttons on the red product.

Im already happy with what you have now. Will this be a V2 thing?








regards Jamie

Hi Jamie,

> the screen is a good example of an offset then needing to be kept
> as a separate part.

I think you should be able to get very close to that with a "grooved" option, just set a really thin groove width... Maybe it could work to make the plug be kept as a separate part if you set Groove width = 0.


> could you choose drag the inset curves around to make it an uneven offset?

That would definitely be cool, but unfortunately it would be extremely difficult to set that up for the general case, because this mechanism can be applied to a lot more than just a 4-sided box area.

Like here for example:






The face being inset does not even need to be planar:




> For example making the CD drawer would need a bigger offset
> from the bottom than the top and sides.

Right now probably what you would do would be to extrude one of those side faces to make a box which you could then boolean union with the main piece to fill in some area to make it uneven.

In the future I'd like to make this easier by allowing you to edit a model by grabbing a face and sliding it around, but it will be a while before that will be possible.


> Could inset use projected curves?

No, not currently - the way it functions is similar to offset or shell, meaning it constructs pieces by offsetting existing surfaces in the model and does not take in any custom drawn curves.

I do want to have something in the future that would let you more easily carve a model in various ways with curves (in addition to how you can do it now by booleaning out holes), but it will require a much different mechanism than what this is currently doing.


> Will this be a V2 thing?

Yup, it looks like it since it has come together really quickly.

- Michael

Hi Michael

Thanks for the clarification, it will be a good addition to the tools with the groove function added in. I glad it will be in V2

I am looking forward to see how V3 shapes up with your ideas on carving with curves. Although I think you should have a good holiday after V2 is released.

Kind regards

Jamie

Hi
Michael this Inset will be great and a big time saver! (maybe in V2?).
About to keep the cut piece after Inset: (Im french and cannot really follow/understand prec. posts about that)
it can be usefull for making lids, trap ddors, to save the cutted part
i.e. battery trap doors with first inset, then another inset bigger for battery housing.

Hi Jamie, one way that it will be possible to work with curves with this initially would be to use the curves to carve the base solid up into smaller solids, then you can inset the top faces of the smaller pieces.

You can use the Boolean Merge command to cut a solid by a profile curve and leave all the pieces behind.

That looks something like this:





So that combination may be a good way to effectively use curves already.

- Michael

I'm going to use this new function like crazy. My sincerest thanks.

So glad this made it into V2 (and the current beta)!

Excellent work Michael :D

Michael,
I was working the label can model and wanted to inset command the face on the can. The inset command will complete on "inwards" but produce nothing with "outwards". I can offset the surface and shell it to get the job done though. Are you interested in seeing these types of models yet? I know you said it's new and will be refined, So no need to be bombed with insets that fail, but if you want the model "pre-inset", I'll post it.

All sharp corners.

Hi Burr - the "sharp corners" part that I was talking about previously was actually meaning how multiple surfaces touch one another, not necessarily how the trim curves of one surface are arranged...

But yeah if you can post it I'll take a look - most likely it will be a case that is having difficulty with the geometry library's offsetter and probably not much that I can do about it directly but it is worth a check.

It will not be unusual to see failures with the new inset tool because the offset mechanism in the geometry library just has difficulties with many cases.

The Inset command internally uses solid offsetting a couple of times in sequence, so any difficulty in the offset calculation will cause it to fail.

- Michael

Here's the file. I only post it in hopes it helps you with something. But not for any particular need I have. No need to post back a file that "Works" for me or anything. It only appeared that it should work from what I understood of your previous explanation, so I brought it up, but I wont inundate you with circumstances where it doesnt work.

Hi Burr, yeah that's actually the _non_ sharp cornered kind of case.

You've got 2 surfaces here joined together:



And check out this edge for example where they join:




The 2 surfaces are completely smooth to one another at that joined edge rather than touching each other at a sharp edge. That can cause additional difficulties.

You can actually get it to work in this case for Direction = Outwards if you use Edit > Separate to break that surface into an individual part rather than having it smoothly connected to the other piece.

I will actually take a closer look at this case though, because the Inset command is supposed to make an attempt to use the surface as an individual part automatically and ignore the connections to neighboring surfaces if it was having problems with the offset.

- Michael

In this area TopMod is a crazzy Poly prog for some Inset function ;)

http://www.topmod3d.org/ (free)