< but unfortunately they aren't in a format that MoI can open.
http://www.3dlapidary.com/HTML/Collections.htm
Curious there are some in 3Dm format
Look at the end of the page many model can be load in 3dm formats but effectively can't be open in Moi

@Michael Why? There are some 3dm format?
These seems for Rhino 2
Can't be open in Moi :(

Hi Pilou, it's because the objects are stored in the .3dm file as a polygon mesh object, not a NURBS object.

MoI will only read NURBS objects out of .3dm files, it skips over polygon mesh objects.

- Michael

Ok ! So 3dm can save 2 different sorts of "curves" minimum (?)
Betrayed by the name :)

> So 3dm can save 2 different sorts of "curves" minimum (?)

Well, the other type of data is not curves, it is a faceted polygon mesh, just triangles and quad polygons like for example what is exported to OBJ format from MoI normally.

There are actually several different types of objects that can be stored in .3dm files, like NURBS, polygon meshes, lights, annotation dimensions, ... MoI will only read out the NURBS objects right now.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Since you can extract points from the meshes in Rhino, if someone wants to build NURBS surfaces from
the points for some of the more commonly used gemstones, they could. I'll upload some files with points if there's any interest.

Jesse

Edit: I looked at some of the meshes and it seems that unless you work right off the mesh to build surfaces from points, it could be confusing to know which points get connected by lines, so it has to be done in Rhino...I'll do a few of the basic ones.

Hi Jesse - since these shapes are actually intended to be faceted objects, this is one of the few cases where using the "MeshToNurb" command in Rhino will work really well.

To convert it, don't bother with extracting points, just select the mesh stone, run MeshToNurb on it in Rhino, and export the resulting NURBS model.

This will convert each polygonal face into a (potentially trimmed) NURBS surface.

- Michael

Very cool tutorials Jesse!
Thanks. I learn something new everytime I see your stuff.
Regards,
Ken

Hi Michael,

I didn't even think of that. It was very easy!



DivShare File - gemstones4MoI.zip

Jesse


P.S.

I can't seem to get the URL to post as a hyper-link to open up the download in a new page...the forum editor is correcting the code even though I checked off submitted code, so I've posted it as a direct link.

When I put the tags on it, the page keeps changing this "> to this " />

This is the URL link I wanted to make into a hyper-link-
[url=http://www.divshare.com/download/718753-487]DivShare File - gemstones4MoI.zip[/url]



DivShare File - gemstones4MoI.zip

Hi Jesse - maybe I don't understand, but it seems like the links in your message are working fine... I'm not quite sure what you want instead of what is in your message there.

The HTML code for a hyperlink should look like this: <a href="your_url_here"> displayed_text_here </a>

So for example, typing in <a href="http://moi3d.com">MoI home page</a> should produce this: MoI home page

But I think if you just put an URL in just mixed directly in with plain text, it is supposed to detect it and make it into a link automatically, like http://moi3d.com in that case the label will use the same text as the URL.

Maybe this appears like it is not working in the edit page, which is a bit different than the "brand new post" page?

- Michael

>
This definitely makes sense, but since there is a pretty good workaround of just making solids as cutters, ......................
,solids modelers often times the extrude tool is used for this type of cut, where the extrude can be used to add or remove material from an existing solid instead of creating a brand new object.... I'm not sure which one is best for this option, boolean difference or extrude. Maybe both should have it?

Hi Michael,


I don't really think it's a priority either, I was just curious about it..Rhino4 has some hole cutters now, but usually for cutting azures (the fancy jewelry term for holes) ;), I'd want to create an angled seat for the stone and perhaps, taper the cutter as it extends through the piece, so I'd make a cutter with a revolve, most of the time.



>guess there can actually be a problem with this in a tutorial because some things like construction lines are so easy to create that they kind of appear somewhat magically in the middle of the tutorial without someone really knowing how they got there.


That's partially due to my sloppy video editing with Wink. I've been trying to trim down the size of the videos by taking out unnecessary frames, but sometimes I select too many at once, and delete them before I remember to save the original file of the video. It happened a few times in my last video, so a few key frames got chopped out. I'm going to try screen captures which are user-activated with a keyboard shortcut rather than automatic keyboard or cursor activated captures. Wink puts in the animated cursor movement between frames, anyway, so it looks the same as an unedited video capture. The funny thing is it takes about as long to create the tutorial in MoI as the time that it takes to watch it, but it takes a whole lot longer to edit these things....:-) So I could just add the text and then post the long versions of them, dividing them up into 5MB segments for easier downloading.

Jesse

Cool collection !
But it's me or the "plan surfaces" are triangulated?

I don't know also that an address of a Divshar's file give also the possibility to see a and give the possibility to load your other files ! :)

> But it's me or the "plan surfaces" are triangulated?

It's not just you - that's just how they happened to be stored in the original file that Jesse converted.

That's because they were stored as Rhino polygon mesh objects - these types of objects in Rhino are made up of either triangle or quad faces only.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

The file sharing site has a thing that automatically creates codes for you to cut and paste, so
I thought the one they give you for "forums" would open in a new window, rather than jump
to the page as a direct link. I can post them as direct links, but I thought some people might
object to being taken away from the MoI forum with a direct link! :-)

-Jesse

Hi Pilou,

I noticed that too, but there are no options in the Rhino nurbsfrommesh
command that I could find to change it. Thanks Michael, for explaining
why they are triangulated. :)

Yeah, I am in the process of moving all my files to Divshare. it's a nicer site than Filefront
where I have some other tutorials. I'm hesitant to even send anyone to Filefront
because it's so full of advertising and other junk.

-Jesse

http://www.divshare.com/profile/JDK_3d_Jewelry

there is not in Rhino 4 something like "repair" function or "Optimize" for the plan triangulated?

> there is not in Rhino 4 something like "repair" function or
> "Optimize" for the plan triangulated?

I think there is a command "MergeAllFaces", which will combine NURBS surfaces that are coplanar into one larger trimmed plane.

You could run that on those stones to simplify some of them, you should be able to do this with the Rhino eval version, you can find it here if you need to do that: http://www.rhino3d.com/eval.htm

- Michael

> so I thought the one they give you for "forums" would open in a new
> window, rather than jump to the page as a direct link.

Hi Jesse, I guess I still don't quite understand - when I click on your links they do seem to open in a new window for me, either a new tab in Firefox 2.0, or an actual new window in IE7... For me the MoI forum page is left undisturbed.

It looks like you may have gotten an <img> tag in there instead of an <a> tag at some point - the <img> tag is the one that will change from "> to " /> - that's because img tags don't actually have a separate end tag.

For a hyperlink you don't want an >img< src=""/>, you want an <a href=""></a>

- Michael

oh, ok... I forgot about that one too... there used to be a script for Rhino3
that I think was called "simplify polysurfaces" that did the same thing.
I suppose they would render faster if they had a few less surfaces.

-Jesse

Thanks Michael,

Sorry for the confusion....I must have configured Firefox to open new links in the same tab...

Jesse

Maybe I'm the one that has configured something differently... Anyway, it seems to get you there one way or the other which is the main thing! :)