Hi guys

I'm trying to project a spline of a cutter onto a plane object that I can then manipulate into the box that I want. When I project the the paths it all works ok but then I can't seem to separate the areas I want to keep so I can them make up the box shape itself. I'm sure there is something really simple here I'm not doing right. I have also have tried rebuilding the paths from what come in when imported as 140 curves (even after compositing in Illustrator) but when I run the rebuild function it will only get it down to around 20 objects. I can't seem to join it either.

I could just build something like this from a cube but I would like to know if I can make up what I need from a cutter guide too.

Many thanks guys

Lang

With a lot of trimming, the edges for one face can be selected, and then planar run.
Adjoining edges need to be reused...
Then the faces can be rotated.

The intersect script shows all of the intersections.

Here is a procedure to do the trimming:

Select base plane, color it green, and hide it, or just delete it.

Run the intersect script, which shows the intersection points. Color them red, and hide them.

Select all of the lines, and run the trim command, with Keep. Then select the red points as cut points.

Thanks bemfarmer I'll give that a go.

Lang

Lang, your box project is very cool.

I suppose to cut it on a router, you would need vectors in another program?

Hi Lang, like Brian mentions you can use Trim to cut your plane up by those profiles but you should make the profiles to be all made up of closed patterns and not with little individual edges sticking out like this:



And not with incomplete edges like this:



Once you have completed all the contours so that there are all closed regions you can then use Edit > Trim to cut it up, and also Trim includes an automatic projection in it as well so if the curves are on a different elevation or something you do not need to do a separate projection step before the Trim, just do the Trim directly.

See the attached 3DM file where I just drew in a few more lines to make all closed regions.

Then to do the Trim you can actually do it all at once, just select your base plane, run Edit > Trim - select all your curves as cutting objects and push Enter or right-click, then at the next prompt where it asks you to select which pieces to discard instead of picking anything to throw away just push Enter or right-click there and it will cut things up and keep all the pieces. After that you will have a bunch of individual pieces like this:




Then if you want to rotate things into place probably the most convenient way is to use Transform > Rotate > Rotate axis - that allows you to pick a line which will serve as the axis line to do the rotation around.

Hope this helps!

- Michael

The lower left flap is not quite touching the side panel, in two places, so the point trim does not work there, without modification.

The intersect "script" is the same as the construct/curve/isect command, (I think.)?

EDIT: Run the script "MarkOpenCurveStart" to see several spots where the lines do not quite intersect.
Need to zoom in a lot to see them. Might cause problems in other programs operation?

I guess some of them are within some tolerance value?

A million thanks guys you've given me food for thought about the best ways to get this done.

Lang

Michael I just done exactly what you said and and but also cleaned up the lines as like you said bemfarmer some of the lines don't match up properly (strange as this cutter file was supplied). Anyway thanks again guys as this will save a lot of time.

Lang

Hi again guys

I've been playing around with this carton and cutter and have just come across this little problem. I've unified the central hub of the box so I can fillet the edges but when I do this it seems to be making some sort of elongated fillet along the whole of the plane and more. As I've booled/unified it and there aren't any curves I can't rebuild it just in case this is what I should've done?

Thanks

Lang

Hi Lang - re: fillet - because your central hub piece is not a closed solid and is an open surface with the ends actually being different lengths:



That kind of situation is making it difficult for the filleter to figure out how it should trim off the ends of the fillet surface that is constructed. So instead of any trimming you just get the full extended fillet surface.

If you wanted the fillet to be automatically trimmed, you could try to make the box to be a fully closed solid instead of just some open surfaces, that will help it to know how to cut the fillet with some of the side wall surfaces.

But probably the easiest thing to do is to just trim the fillet that was generated to whatever you need - the just newly released V3 beta actually as a Trim by Isocurve option which is handy for just this type of situation. To use it, use Edit > Separate on your fillet to break it out so that it's just a single surface all by itself and not joined to anything else. Then select it and run Edit > Trim , then push the Isocurve button and you will then be able to pick a point on the surface and you will see some lines across the surface to use as cutters, switch the direction to U or V to get the particular cutter line that you need. I'm not exactly sure how you want the result to be formed since the ends are not aligned, that's up to you to decide where to place the cut.

So basically the fillet that you see there has generated the raw extended material that you need and you can then trim it to cut it down to be smaller.

- Michael

Hi Lang, also this part of your question here:

> As I've booled/unified it and there aren't any curves I can't rebuild it just in case this is what I should've done?

There isn't anything actually wrong with what you have done so far - if you want the fillet to be automatically made to be smaller you could do that by building a solid first with capped ends and then filleting that. But it's not like there is anything particularly wrong with the fillet you are showing there, if it's too big for what you want then you can just cut it using Trim...

- Michael

Thanks Michael, much appreciated as ever.

Lang