Hi,

MOI is working out fine. It's just little abstract in extreme situations. But I'm really getting it, most of the time :-)
For example to create the object to cut out the front hole where the iphone sits in the iphone dock: http://pocketables.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/06/30/iphone_dock.jpg
I hav tried a thousand ways: cutting an box with straight extrudes from 3 directions, making a mesh with poly's, etc... nothing realy works out fine.


Here is my progress so far: http://clients.nonius.be/moi/iphonedock.png

Any help on this one?


Thnx!

sven

Hi Sven,

In this situation and the way Nurbs work you would model the shape of the cutout in solid and use Boolean difference to cut out that shape from the main body, eg. if you need a square pocket in a body you would model a box then subtract it from the main body.
I've shown the pieces I used to Boolean diff (Subtract) the shapes needed in the main or parent body, I have also attached the 3dm file.



Cheers

Hi sven, so if I understand you correctly you want to make the hole that the iPhone sits in.

That hole is not just a simple hole with straight side walls, which is what you will get with things like extrusion, it is more molded to the same shape of the iPhone itself.

So that also means that you will have to create an iPhone like solid, and then use that iPhone shaped solid as the cutting object in a Boolean difference operation to cut the bottom block.

That would go something like this - model the shape of the iPhone:



Position that shape in relation to your base like this:




Now select the base, run Construct > Boolean > Difference, and use the phone part as the cutting object, that will give this kind of result:




I guess there may be some other kind of cut in addition to that, maybe something sticking forwards like this:




But anyway if you want to get a hole that has a kind of molded shape to it, you will usually need to model that shape as a separate part, then use it as the cutting object in a boolean operation, that will cut the base object and leave the imprint of the shape on it.

- Michael

EDIT: Danny beat me to it! Thanks Danny!

Hi,

That is indeed what I was trying. I should rephrase my question actualy: how can I model the Iphone solid?
In fact it is that that gives me the creeps. At first it looks kinda easy, but there is little more than meets the eye. It is not just a box with filleting I am affreaid :-(
I think my main problem is still the fact that I look way too far for a solution. That I make things to complex. bummer :-)



s.

Hi sven, when something is more rounded all over or semi-melty looking that can make it fall outside of some of the regular 2D driven modeling techniques.

That starts to get into a more difficult area of NURBS modeling when the shapes are not really defined by 2D profile curves.

One thing you can generally try though is to block out the shape with sharp corners and then apply fillets to round things off.

Also sometimes it can work to use some of the freeform surfacing tools like sweep to make some portion of the curved shape, but still use Fillet to finish it off.

See these previous threads for some ideas:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1002.1
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3137.1



Also even though it is a different shape, check out this other thread here, it also shows how you can get that kind of "smooth all over" type shape by building some larger curved pieces with sweeps and then filleting them to make the final result:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2164.2
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2164.4


That kind of stuff is getting into a somewhat more difficult and advanced area of NURBS modeling though.

- Michael

yeah, I noticed :-)
Difficult indeed. Thnx for the links, I'll check 'm out right away!

I'll be posting my results here


thnx


sven

Hi,

Attached the iphone wich satisfied me to cut out of the dock.
One prob, it appears not to be a solid. so the boolean doesn't work :-(

thnx advance.



s.

Hi sven, I've attached here your last file updated so that it is joined into a solid.

I had to scale it down by 1/10 in size in order to fully join it, I think you are running again into the problem with Network just barely sagging out of join tolerance.

- Michael

thnx,

Must remember to build this step in each and every workflow.
Gonna try it before I open yours!

thnx mate!


s.

got it working allright!

thnx!

s.

Hi sven, yeah that's something particular to Network - I'm going to be working on fixing it up in v3 so that you will not need that scale down step to join networked pieces together.

- Michael

you da best. I'm purchasing the day my demo runs out.

gr.

s.

p.s.: you on twitter by any chance? I am, under id nonius3D

Hi sven, sorry no I'm not on twitter. Just replying here in the MoI forum keeps me plenty busy enough as it is... :)

- Michael

lol :-)

me knows who this is and looks around :) good you are tryin moi mate :)

hi max, nice to meet you inhere too!

sven

Dudes,

Made this little blutooth ear thingy with MOI.
As you can see I made it very small to make a solid out of it so that I can refine with booleans. But hey... I must be heading up the wrong road here :-)

what I did:

* scaled it down with scalde command
* select all > join
* select all > boolean > unite
* tried some cutout with a sphere but no luck.

Have to mention that when I single click the object it selects as a whole so it confuses me a bit.

gr.


sven

Hi sven, could you please post the 3DM model for your earpiece so I could take a look? You could e-mail it to me at moi@moi3d.com if you want to keep it private.

> Have to mention that when I single click the object it selects as a
> whole so it confuses me a bit.

Well you can easily have parts that join up on some sides but not others. There are a million possible ways that can happen, here's one quick example:



So notice there that those 4 surfaces can be joined together into one combined object, even though there is a gap there indicated in red? You have something similar to that.

One thing that can be good is to set up a keyboard shortcut with the following on it:

script: /* Highlight naked edges */ var gd = moi.geometryDatabase; gd.deselectAll(); var breps = gd.getObjects().getBreps(); for ( var i = 0; i < breps.length; ++i ) breps.item(i).getNakedEdges().setProperty( 'selected', true );


Then when you hit that key all "naked edges" (edges that belong to only 1 surface instead of being joined between 2 surfaces) will get highlighted, that can help to identify the areas where you have a hole.

- Michael

Trying your script, mailing the file when that fails...needs to keep some things private ;-)


thnx mate


s.