Hi Andy,

> I have taken the same approach with nurbs. Start
> with the basic shape, trim the cuts, and then I used
> shell to add thickness to them and fillet the connecting
> edges. This gives me the look that I am after but I am
> not sure if it is the proper, or best way of approaching
> this problem.

So just to clarify - there is nothing wrong about that technique of using Trim + Shell + fillet.

But it can be somewhat more convenient in general to stay working with all solids when possible, it can end up saving some steps. Working with individual surfaces is a somewhat more "low level" kind of an approach.

So for example in your model there instead of doing Trim + Shell to generate the multiple pieces instead you could keep things in solids by using boolean difference on the solid to generate the multiple pieces.

- Michael

One more question along these same lines. Is there a way to inset a particular surface while not extruding it?

For example I have this surface.



I want to do an inset, similar to the image attached, but I don't want to extrude it inwards. Bascially I want an inset but with a 0 height. I tried the seperate height option, but entering 0 would cause the tool to not work.

Hi Andy,

> Is there a way to inset a particular surface while not extruding it?

Inset will always try to make a protrusion inwards or outwards, but if you enable the "Grooved" option and leave the groove width to be empty or set groove width to 0, you will get the "plug" as a separate object which will be flush to the original shape.

Or depending on what you want you may actually want to put in a small value for the groove width so that there is a little bit of separation between the outer and inner pieces, like this:

Original surface:



Inset with "Grooved" option enabled, with a small groove width:



- Michael