Good morning!

So I'm designing a custom business card holder for our secret santa gift exchange which I'm going to print out. Because of odd overhangs, I need to slice this object into 2 pieces that I can print separately.

For some reason, I can't figure out how to use the highlighted closed loop to create a slicing plane. It only seems to want to work on an axis.



Any idea how I can use the highlighted closed loop to act as a cutting tool so I can separate the pieces?

Thanks!

Just draw a plan (A line extruded with Direction)
and make Boolean Diff if you want 2 waterpoof objects (Option Keep Object)
or function Trim if you want Open Objects!

I tried that, but it would only snap to an axis. It seems a 3 point plane did that trick. Thanks!

Hmm..

So I created the plane no problem, but difference boolean still leaves me with one complete part instead of two separate parts where the plane intersected the object.

Just increase the size of your "face plane" and all will be working fine! ;)

Use Transform / Scale 1D
or The Edit Frame ( Clic an "angle corner" for Toggle "Center / Extrimities" symmetry ) visible following! :)

That worked, thank you. I'm not sure why the size of the plane mattered, but it did. Good to know.

Cheers!

Hi Teddy,

re:
> I'm not sure why the size of the plane mattered, but it did. Good to know.

On your original file, the plane is just barely not quite extending all the way across the object, there is a gap of about 0.001 units or so on one side, you have to zoom in quite a ways in the Back view to see it though, but it looks like this:





So because the plane does not fully cross the object on that one side, it does not fully divide the object into 2 pieces when you do the boolean.

If you widen it just a bit like this then it will work since it fully divides the object then:




It's generally a good idea to make things like cutting planes extend a little ways outside of the object that is being cut just to make sure that it fully crosses the object, if it does not fully cross the object the boolean won't cut the object into pieces like you want.

- Michael

I am first pass, Michael is second pass!
Of course a little more in deepth! :)

Hi Teddy,

I think you may be working harder than you need to.

Consider these 2 screens (1 on top of the second)

1) Your object
2) A slice LINE (not plane)

Just boolean difference the LINE from the solid and it will work (3 as you want.

Hi Chipp, yup just using 2D curves to boolean with instead of always building surfaces can definitely speed things up!

Internally the booleans will extrude that line into a cutting plane for you, and also it handles making the extruded plane to be a little larger than the base object automatically.

- Michael

I had many times some failures with only boolean objects + line
Extruding this curve make the trick at any time! :)

Hi Pilou,

re:
> I had many times some failures with only boolean objects + line
> Extruding this curve make the trick at any time! :)

If you have a line that goes parallel to the x y or z axis lines, there can be multiple different directions for the automatic extrusion, and the view that you use to select the line in becomes significant.

Possibly that's what you ran into, but I can't be sure without seeing an example file.

- Michael

Sure, i will send you a file as soon this happen again! :)