I tried using the new inset command, but to keep his original curve and the inset at the same size, I offset his trimming curve by the inset distance I was going to use. But the resulting inset didnt match the original curve, so I did the shell as jamie did. But, in the future, the new inset command can make shorter easier work of this without trying to reverse engineer the curve to work with that method.

Hi Jamie, just a quick note:


The Trim command actually has stuff built in to it to project planar cutting curves itself, so there is no need to do the projection as an extra step beforehand.

It actually makes things a bit easier for the Trim calculations if you do let Trim do the projection itself.

- Michael

Hi Stuart - it looks like both Jamie and Burr have you covered with some steps to get what you want above?

That method of trimming out a piece and then either shelling or extruding the trimmed fragment is probably the best way to do this.

Also check out these previous posts from some other illustrations on this method:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3024.4
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3318.1

- Michael

As a side note, I did this too just for fun.

Select pipe.
Do a trim, selecting the panel curve as the cutting object (keeping all parts).
Delete extra panel curve at bottom.
Do an Inset on the panel (using separate height).
Boolean pieces together.

Worked fine :)

Inset command is good!