A new Mar-9-2007 beta release is now available at the download page: http://moi3d.com/download.htm.

This release is focused on Booleans.

Booleans between surfaces and solids now work well - previously a boolean between a solid and a surface could create a sort of messed up object.

New "auto-extrude" allows for difference and intersection booleans between a solid/surface and a planar curve or a line. So for example draw a circle and use boolean difference to cut a cylindrical hole through a solid by using the circle as the object to subtract. MoI handles the extrusion of the circle for you automatically. Or another example is draw a sphere, and then draw a line flat on a plane that appears to cut the sphere in 2. Now you can boolean difference the sphere with the line to split the sphere into 2 solid chunks - this is different than using trim since the results are 2 solids instead of a surface like Trim generates.

New curve/curve booleans. You can now use boolean operations on a curve to curve level - this is applied if you select only all curves that are on the same plane when using the boolean commands. Closed curves form regions which can include holes for nested closed curves. Closed regions boolean against closed regions in the same way that solids boolean against solids. Closed curves and open curves can interact in a variety of ways - for instance you can difference a circle with some lines that go through it to cut the circle into smaller closed loops. You can model hatch-type patterns by intersecting a grid layout of open curves against a closed loop. Union will work to find a common closed region or regions to a set of overlapping open curves or lines.

New boolean merge operator - there is a new "merge" operation available which is activated when you select objects, run boolean intersection, but push "Done" without selecting anything for the second intersection set. This can be used to find a common volume to a set of surfaces where some of the surfaces are sticking through each other. It will also generate all combinations of volumes between 2 intersecting solids.

Updated Escape key handling - Escape will still cancel the currently running command as before, but now it can also be used to deselect all objects and turn off points if pushed repeatedly.

A couple other bug fixes.


- Michael

Ye gods, this is awesome! :D

Once again Michael, you have outdone yourself!
Congrats on another stellar beta.

Now go get some sleep ;)

Thanks guys!

> Now go get some sleep ;)

It's hard, I keep on finding cool new ways to use the booleans. :)

There are quite a lot of possibilities now

Check this out:

Tube with lines below it. For auto-extrude sometimes there is more than one direction that a line can be extruded in if it is on a world axis direction. Positioning the line a little bit away from the second object will disambiguate the direction and make it go towards the other object:



Select the tube, do Boolean intersection, select the lines and you've got cross-sectional cut planes:




Do a difference instead of intersection and you get thick slices, each of which is a solid (the way this part works is so cool):




And here's an interesting twist on the thick slices - here I selected all the slices and chamfered them all in one go, then unioned those back into a solid (had to do it in a couple of batches, it got a bit confused when trying the whole thing at once), then sliced it the other direction:



Ok, now time to get some sleep... :)

- Michael

Wow I just download the 26 feb released yesterday - you're fast great job!

Excellent!. It's all so much easier now!

If only we could use MoI in the kitchen. Oh, the things I could do to my vegetables!

Very nice update Michael, as always. I guess V1.0 is coming really soon !!!

Hehe new powerful function!
Speed of releasing betas is like Bip Bip and the wolf coyote :D

Update french version for perfectionnist!
Just one accent replaced :D
Unzip it and replace FrenchString in folder C:..\Program Files\MoI beta Mar-9-2007\ui

Woaw ! Just terrific !
I've been playing with it for an hour now and it's sooo incredible. So easy to create complex objects. And FUN ! ;-))
A major update in my opinion.

Hi,

great new beta. I like the new boolean possibilities.

As far as i can see there are no new text string to translate?

MfG
sk2k

> As far as i can see there are no new text string to translate?

Nope, no text changes for this version.

- Michael

Just a precision about all combinaisons between "2 solides" using the Boolean Intersection "merge" :)

Little test of functions of Mr George B 1814-1875 :)

Hi Pilou, looks like you are having fun with booleans!

One interesting thing is that history will work for the case of boolean intersection between auto-extruded curves, so if you turn on control points and edit the curves for your intersection case, you should see the object update.

This is because this particular case does not delete any input objects, it only creates new objects. Deletion of the input objects is what normally breaks history right now.

- Michael

Hi Pilou, here is an example.

2 Circles, 90 degrees from one another:



Select one of them, then run Boolean intersection, then select the other one and push Done to generate this result by auto-extrude:




Because the original curves are still around and have not been deleted, you can turn on control points for either one and edit it and the intersection will update:



- Michael

Ah ! I have made that with a curve and a solid and not with 2 curves !

Yes, the solid as an input doesn't work with history right now, because that original solid gets deleted.

But with 2 curves none of the inputs are deleted - this is the case that works with history right now.

- Michael

This is a very cool trick. I have so much to learn about nurbs...

Hi Joe, that is not about mystery of NURBS, but rather about Michael's astonishing skills! -Petr