Hi,

just started with MOI and maybe someone could help me.

I got a revolve object ( a curved pot cover) and everytime I'm trying
to place or build another object (text or handle etc.) on that revolve-object
the splines of the new object are somehow intersecting with the "revolve"-spline
and therefore ( I think) I cannot make a fillet.

Is it possible to avoid, that the revolve-spline disturbs other operations?

Hope you understand

regards
MIke

Hi mike, sorry but it's a bit difficult to understand exactly what you are running into.

Can you please attach a 3DM model file with the revolve and the other objects in it? Being able to examine the actual model data that you are describing will make it a lot easier to understand what is going on.

One thing is that when you do a revolve, if you then edit the curve that was used to make the revolve, the revolved surface will update in response to the edit. That's MoI's history function that allows you to manipulate the original curve and see the updated result immediately.

If that's what is getting in your way you might want to delete the original generator curve so that you won't accidentally move it around and have the revolve update, or you can also just disable history updating on the revolve by selecting the revolved result and using the Edit > History command - there is a button that will show up that says "Disable update" that you can push to turn off history updating on that object.

I'm not exactly sure if that history update thing is what you're running into or not though.

- Michael

Or do you maybe mean the "seam" curve of a closed surface?

When you do a revolve, it creates a closed surface - every NURBS surface has a rectangular layout to it and to make a closed surface it's kind of like taking a piece of paper and rolling it up so that 2 edges touch each other. That touching edge area is called the "seam" edge of the closed surface.

When doing fillets, it can be possible for the seam edge (or any edge) to mess up filleting since a fillet will not cross over some other nearby edge that is not actually part of the current fillet set.

If that's what you are running into you may need to do something like rotate the revolve by 90 or 180 degrees to get its seam edge out of the general area where you are trying to do the fillet.

- Michael

maybe that helps

Hi Mike - looking at your screenshot it appears that the revolve object and the other smaller one at the top are totally separate objects?

In order to fillet them you're going to need to boolean them together so that they are combined into one object which has shared edges at the place where they cross.

If you just have 2 totally separate individual objects they won't fillet with one another except for the special case of having 2 objects that are single surfaces and not joined-together surfaces.

So from what I can see you should use boolean union to merge those objects together, then there will be an edge there which you can fillet.

If you could post the 3DM model file it would still help me to more fully understand what is going on there, for example what exactly is the curve that you have highlighted in yellow there, is it an edge that is part of one of those solids, or is it possibly something like an independent curve object created from generating intersection curves between those objects or projected on to there?

There are a lot of details that are difficult to see only from a screenshot, so while a screenshot definitely helps more than just a text description, a 3DM model file also included also helps out a lot to figure things out.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

thanks for the fast response!

Tthink my problem is, that I cannot delete the original revolve curve.
When I try this, the object gets also deleted. Even when I disable history before.

regards
Michael

Hi mike,

> Tthink my problem is, that I cannot delete the original
> revolve curve.
> When I try this, the object gets also deleted. Even when
> I disable history before.

I think that I led you down the wrong path with the history stuff - that doesn't seem to be what you were running into, I just didn't understand initially what you were running into just from the first text description.

But not being able to delete the original revolve curve is a kind of unusual problem - can you please post the 3DM model file with the curve in it which will not delete so I can look at it and see what you might be running into?

One thing is to make sure you have cleared selection from any other objects by clicking into an empty spot before selecting the revolve curve - if you had something else already selected and then clicked on to the revolve curve the selection on the other thing will still be there and it will also get deleted.

- Michael

well, thats maybe a typical beginner-problem in MOI.

I first made the revolve
Then I made the second spline for the handle or whatever.
Then I did a trimm command
Then I extruded the inner face I got from the trim


And I sure, I will run in more problems when
adding more Textobjects to that Pot surface.

thanks
Michael

Hi mike, thanks for posting the 3DM file!

So first re: deleting the revolved curve - from what I can see in your file your original revolve curve is actually hidden and also located a little distance down below your solid shapes. If I display it, it seems that I can select it and delete it ok.

The thing that you see that is attached to your solid is not the revolve curve - that's the "seam edge" of the surface. You don't want to delete that since it is a built in part of the surface itself. Every surface in MoI has edge curves that define its boundary and in the case of a closed surface like a revolve it's like you have a sheet of paper rolled up with 2 opposite edges of the paper touching each other. That's a normal part of the surface and not something to get rid of.

The generator curve will be another separate object from that entirely.

- Michael

Hi mike,

> I first made the revolve
> Then I made the second spline for the handle or whatever.
> Then I did a trimm command
> Then I extruded the inner face I got from the trim

That's an ok way to do things especially if you want the top of the extruded piece to have the same kind of rounded shape as the revolve.

But you'll need to do a bit more work to get the pieces all joined together into a single solid so that you will have some joined edges to be able to fillet.

When you do the extrude of the inner face - that makes a little self contained solid out of the extrusion and you'll then need to delete the bottom face of that so that there is an unattached edge at the bottom of that extrusion that then matches to the other unattached trimmed away edge of the revolve, then you can use Edit > Join to glue together those pieces into a solid.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

You're right. Its the seam.

But anyway, after deleting the original revolve-spline
then its the seam-curve of the revolve which distubs in my case.

Maybe I'm doing something totally wrong.
So whats the best or correct way to do this kind of operation?

Btw. is it possible to seperate optical (f.e. by color)
"seams-curves" - "intersecting curves" and "construction-splines"?


thanks
Michael

Hi Michael,

> Btw. is it possible to seperate optical (f.e. by color)
> "seams-curves" - "intersecting curves" and "construction-splines"?

You can control the colors of things by assigning them different styles - that's done by the properties panel or by clicking on a color swatch in the scene browser:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/moi_command_reference11.htm#propertiespanel
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/moi_command_reference11.htm#scenebrowser

Basically colors are left to be used as a kind of grouping mechanism by your own preference, so there isn't anything like make all construction splines a particular color separate from the style system.

- Michael

sorry again!


another problem I have is:

I want to merge f.e. 3 separate faces.
I run the "merge"-command - the I selct the 3 faces -
and then "enter".

But after that, I still have these 3 faces sepeate.

???

thanks
Michael

Hi Michael,

> Maybe I'm doing something totally wrong.
> So whats the best or correct way to do this kind of operation?

Well, you're not really doing anything wrong other than needing to get the whole thing joined together as one piece.

Sometimes seam curves can tend to get in the way and that's what's happening to you here.

With the pieces all joined together into 1 solid (see attached 3DM file), then fillet looks like it will be able to generate a partial result but it has difficulty trimming the objects back so the fillet piece that gets generated will have to be manually trimmed into place.

Let me know what fillet radius you want and I can help you do that.

Also the one main thing that would probably make it easier is if the midpoint of your shape was actually aligned to the seam instead of shifted just a little ways to one side - is that intentional that your top shape is not symmetrical around the center of the revolve?

By the way it's late over here so I'll probably have to continue tomorrow.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

> I want to merge f.e. 3 separate faces.
> I run the "merge"-command - the I selct the 3 faces -
> and then "enter".

Do you mean the Boolean merge command? The boolean commands are more for slicing up pieces that need to be intersected with one another.

If you have things that touch at common edges and don't need to be sliced up, then use the Edit > Join command rather than the boolean merge command to glue stuff like that together.

So probably in the case that you're describing there you would use Join, not boolean merge. If that's not right please post a 3DM file with your 3 surfaces in it so I can check them out.

Thanks,
- Michael