Hi Guys. Thanks for help i appreciate, that does shows me the issue in the imported file. The thing I wonder now is WHY does MOI import (from Illustrator as Copy/paste) those as broken non closed curves ? Is there "trick" to import geometry as closed curves somehow ? It's closed in vector software - right?

Thanks again

Hi Lewis,

> The thing I wonder now is WHY does MOI import (from Illustrator as Copy/paste) those as broken non closed curves ?

Moi just imports the curves as they are - if they're open curves they will come into MoI as open curves...


> Is there "trick" to import geometry as closed curves somehow ?

The curves have to be closed in Illustrator to import as closed curves into MoI.


> It's closed in vector software - right?

Nope - it's just that vector software doesn't care as much as MoI if the curve geometry is messy or open - for example in Adobe Illustrator you can have an open curve like this:



But even though it's clearly open you can still apply a fill property to it like this:




Just in general the types of operations that a 2D vector program performs with their curves is more tolerant of messy geometry than the types of things you're trying to do in MoI especially with operations involving intersection calculations like Fillet. So it's not unusual to need to examine and rebuild 2D vector imports if they have problems in their curve geometry.

- Michael

Hmm OK then it's probably easier to fix in in vector program before copy/past ein MOI.

Just as an idea is there maybe scrip which could "merge/snap" points with tolerance ? Like we have merge/weld points in LW (and many other 3D software) which has value input field so when i set merge points 1mm it welds/merges all points within that distance. System like that could fix it in MOI also - right ?

Thanks for examples Michael

Hi Lewis, and then for your Fillet problem - there are messy areas in the swirly shape in these spots here:



If you zoom in to those areas you can see that there are little curve spans in those areas which wiggle around a bit right where they come to a juncture area:



That type of little wiggle with an inflection point is going to make things much more difficult for the fillet engine to construct good fillet surfaces off of, when the fillet surfaces are created they work by tracking along those edges and moving off some distance from them and any wiggly shapes like that will have the wiggles sort of magnified in the fillet result. So that's not good for filleting.

In the attached 3DM file I have edited the curve to just delete many of those points to eliminate the wiggles, you should be able to extrude and fillet this version much more easily.

This is another good example of something that the 2D vector program is not sensitive to but which becomes a problem when you try to do CAD type geometry construction off of that type of geometry.

- Michael

Hi Lewis,

re: System like that could fix it in MOI also - right ?

It could fix some things and break other things - it's not good for example for a curve in MoI to have several points of the curve stacked right on top of each other. That's a type of degenerate curve condition which will also cause problems with different calculations.

The difference with something like LightWave is that it's working with a mesh object and the structure of the mesh involves simple connections between just 2 points, in a mesh structure like that when 2 points collapse together you can just implicitly delete the edge that was between t hem, there isn't really the same concept of a long continuous entity made out of a longer series of points like a NURBS curve is in MoI...

Maybe some kind of process like that type of curve welding could be possible in the future I guess, but it can be difficult to apply polygon mesh editing type tools onto curves, they just operate fairly differently.

- Michael

Interesting, lot of quality info to process :).

I'll see can i prepare it from illustrator to be cleaner. Should be easier to cleanup there than in 3D.

Thanks

Hi Lewis,

re:
> Should be easier to cleanup there than in 3D.

Usually the opposite is true - it tends to be easier to make cleaner geometry inside of MoI than in a 2D vector program, partly because of all the accuracy type flavor like better snapping but also because drawing with a NURBS control point curve is easier to control than Beziers which are more inherently segmented into small pieces.

You can work in 2D in MoI by just maximizing the Top view and working in there.

- Michael

Yes Moi3d is very strong in the 2d department.

What I find very useful is that when you "show points" of an object, you cannot accidentally select points of another curve like in illustrator.

Also when you drag a fence from left to right, only what's inside will be selected, from right to left everything touching the fence will be selected.

Just these two details and the general UI interaction makes it a very productive tool.

Oh! The blend tool works on two curve segments!

Marc

I am a graphic designer of 25 years experience who choose MOI3D after coming up with a product idea I needed to turn into CAD files for 3D printing, laser cutting etc.

At the beginning I thought I would use my skills and familiarity with Illustrator to form the 2D vectors them bring them into MOI. I ran into the same problems on filleting etc. I soon decided to explore the 2D tools in MOI3D using the Top view and have never looked back. The vector tools in MOI are superb for the purpose. They also are designed for mechanical accuracy. I too suggest you take the plunge and go for Top view and vectors in MOI - you won't look back!

MOI3D, with its power and truly intuitive way of working, has enabled me to step into the 3D world and produce CAD drawings I thought I could never, ever master, and hence give me a fighting chance of producing a working prototype of my invention. I am very grateful for that. Thank you Michael and all of the 3D wizards on this board whose work and generous sharing of knowledge inspires me to press on.

Barry

Hi!

It's not the issue that I don't know how to use MOI 2D tools (i know and they are very very good, kudos to Michale for that) to create stuff from scratch. It's the thing that I often get complicated logo (this one i posted is easy, nothing complicated here but it was easy enough for example) in vector format which i would like to render in 3D and instead building it form scratch in polygons i though copy/paste/extrude/fillet in MOI would save me few hours of work (in polygons modeling package). If i need to make/model it from scratch in MOI or only use as background constrain in moi then i might as well do it in LightWave from scratch (i can import AI/EPS there) and make it SubDs mesh and then i'd have ultimate control of smoothness/quality without need to "freeze" to polygons and have dense mesh.

So it's not like I'm designing logo or like they are main part of render/model, it's just like adding Car Badge/emblem on the bonnet which then can take up 2-3 hours on much larger scale/project of complete car model.

cheers and thanks

Hello,

This is the result of simply using the imported curves as guides and using the drawing tools within MoI to recreate those curves without defects and unnecessary detail which result in the ability to perform further operations on the refined set of curves (green) not possible with the original set (red).

Thanks for all the cool replyes and ideas guys.

Only problem with all those "solutions2 is that there is much more manual work than i've anticipated and wanted to do. I hoped to use MOI for great EPS/AI logotype creations to quickly import, extrude, bend/curve front faces and then do great looking fillet/chamfer on top which is problematic in regular polygonal or SubDs methods.
But now I'm stuck in MOI trying to solve some basic stuff like fixing AI files or recreating whole logo in MOI again which is then even slower than trying to do it in Polygons from start (i don't need to recreate logo curves on import in LWModeler) so i'm back to beginning of not using MOI for that :(.

Here is another very simple example I can't grasp in MOI why is it happening :(. I know it's probably my logic i.e. too much thinking about polygons so i'm trying to delete/remove some stuff which is easy in polygonal modeler but obviously not possible in MOI (for whatever reason) so please bare with me and try to explain me how to solve that.

Thanks i advance and Happy holidays :).

Here is short video:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x1bq4h4mk2t65e8/MOI_Solid_TEXT_Logo.rar?dl=0

Hi Lewis, I'm afraid that if the input geometry is messy and garbled it just isn't possible to use it directly. It's the old saying of "garbage in = garbage out" - if your original 2D vector input is of good quality then you'll be able to use it directly but if it isn't good quality you will have to clean it up.

I watched your last video and your question was "why do I get these extra lines" - those are again pretty much the same problem as before, the 2D vectors used in the font are a little messy there and made up of multiple segments rather than being a long single smooth chain of curves. You say something like "I didn't import it, I created it entirely inside of MoI", but that's not really true because the geometry is actually being imported from the font file in that case and it's also not particularly unusual for fonts to be made up of messy geometry as well since they were originally designed just for 2D printing which is not as sensitive to messy geometry as 3D modeling operations are.

But I'm also not sure why you are so concerned about those edges in this particular case since it doesn't prevent you from doing the fillet you want...

Anyway the particular reason for those edges is that when a contour is extruded, each separate segment in the profile curve will get extruded into its own face, so having lines like that means there are separate segments in the generator curve, if you use the option to generate curves instead of solids you can then use Edit > Separate on the curves to break them into their individual segments and you'll see each of those pieces being a separate curve after using Edit > Separate on it.

It may be possible in the future for me to do some more gluing together of these separate segments when 2D vector art is imported (either from AI format or from font files, they are very similar) at the expense of slightly altering the curve shape in order to force pieces that are close to being smooth to be exactly smooth instead. Right now it does not try to do that and just brings in the curves exactly as they are structured in the original 2D vector data.

- Michael

Hi Michael, thanks for such quick reply (and on holidays hours, you are awesome support).

As for some questions here is few answers:
I knew someone will ask why do i worry about those when it filleted them fine :), well thing is that it didn't fillet it on my real target mesh (NDA stuff so i had to use different name/mesh) which also had that "A" letter from that same font but front face/surface wasn't flat like on my video but curved so it was making it harder for fillet which failed on letter A in that case and I wasn't been able to make it single piece so that's why i made that video in the first place :).

Eventually what I did was to create CURVES from FONT instead solid/3D, then get to show points, deleted all points which curved slightly (which effectively is also destroying the font structure/look) and then all worked fine but as i mentioned it was really extra step/long process i hoped i'll be able to avoid and be done much faster with logo creations in MOI than in Polygons programs.

Either way it seems MOI is very sensitive to those small glitches and for some reason tolerance seems to be zero 'coz from look at curves (on that font letter A) LEFT and RIGHT sides seem/look same and yet MOI creates extra edges on Right side of letter A and not on LEFT side so yeah if you could make some "tolerance" setting on import/creation Vector tools in future I think that would help on such cases very much.

Thanks for your time.

Hi Lewis, no problem. And yes, filleting in MoI does tend to be pretty sensitive to curves which come pretty close to being smooth to one another but are just something like 3 or 4 degrees apart from being actually tangent to one another. That's the kind of situation where you'll get separate segments in what you'd rather have as a smooth piece, if they are more exactly smooth to one another they should get fused into a longer single segment instead of separated.

Filleting does not like that kind of "close to smooth but not quite smooth", because fillet surfaces only naturally meet up with each other at totally smooth areas - at any kind of sharp point it means the fillets themselves do not touch each other and a juncture patch has to be created. But in a very shallow corner the juncture can be some kind of tiny slivery piece and often times little slivery pieces cause difficulties for intersecting and joining things together.

So it would probably be better in that particular case for MoI to modify the shapes of the "almost smooth" pieces so that they would instead be totally smooth to one another and then could be combined. That can sometimes cause other problems though, because it changes the shape of the curve and if the shape changes too much that can be undesirable as well. It's somewhat difficult for an automatic mechanism to judge very well for how much of a change should be allowed.

Right now you have to use your own judgment to clean up such things in order to improve the quality of the geometry.

- Michael