Hi Michael and all,

i created a while ago a heart in MoI and thought to engrave it with a Reaction Diffusion pattern, which i created in Photoshop and converted it in Inkscape to vectors and finally rebuild the vectors in MoI. So far so good... The problem i'm facing is that after trying out various techniques, the final engraved model is not a solid. :-( As you can see on my second picture the red surfaces are boolean merged with the heart, resulting in a solid, but when trying out engraving techniques for the red surfaces i don't get a solid. I would be deeply grateful for a solution!

Best regards
Stefan

Hi futagoza,

I've done an object that should be like you wanted.

Is this correct ? http://take.ms/p8tRK

If so, I will show you how I did it.

best,

Nice one!

Hi futagoza,

Here's a 9 min render done in Thea Render (Presto AO, 512 sample, CPU + GPU)

http://take.ms/9XnSw

I used the model I uploaded in my previous post (http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=8160.2)

Best,

Hi Marco,

perfect! Please show me your technique, i'm very curious!

Regards
Stefan

Hi Stefan,

Ok. ASAP (I hope before the end of the day) I'll show you how I did it.

P.S : Which name I have to use to reply to you ? Stefan or futagoza ?

Best,

Thanks a lot Marco!

No problem, i can wait. I would prefer Stefan, but you can use my forum nickname too.

Best regards
Stefan

Ok Stefan,

Here I am.

In this video http://take.ms/obpkW you can examine the method I used to create the solid engraved heart.

I'm pretty sure there are at least other 2-3 different methods, but anyway...this one worked for me.

The video file is rather big (258 Mb, 3 min, hd, 15 frame/sec) and I hope you have a fair connection,
but if you want to play it smoothly I suggest you to download it first.

Here are just some notes regarding some portions of the video :

1) Around 00:50 sec I perform an heavy rebuild that on my laptop (i7 4790K 4.4 Ghz) took bout 32 sec,
therefore in that point I paused and then resumed the video.

2) From about 01:42 I start to use the "shell" command in order to get the solids that I will later use to engrave the heart.

3) At 02:10 you will see a failed attempt to perform a "shell" command on the biggest surface.

HERE'S THE TRICK!
I PERFORM A TRIMMING OF THE BIG SURFACE IN ORDER TO OBTAIN SMALLER PIECES THAT WILL NOT FAIL WITH THE SHELL COMMAND.

I hope I made myself clear.

Best,

Hi Marco,

thank you very very much for making a detailed tutorial! Very much appreciated! I had tried so many things and have not thought about trimming the large surface. I also tried to offset the surfaces in both directions and then lofted them, but could never get a solid out of the large surface! Perfect how you did it.

Thanks again!

Best regards
Stefan

Hi Marco,

me again... after watching your video again the Moai Light Bulb (from the MoI Logo) switched on in my head... :-)

I have now a solution which does not require to trim the large surface, in order to get a solid heart.

What i did, i followed you video again until you did the rebuild command and then the trim command.
After that i offset the large surface inwards, deleted the original large surface and did a loft (straight/exact)
between the heart shape edge and the inward large surface edge. After that i joined the surfaces, mirrored
them and joined them to get a solid heart.

It seems that rebuild is a must! Before i did not do that and was not able to get a clean surface and join
the lofted surfaces.

Best regards
Stefan

Hello Stefan,

It's nice to know you found my little tutorial interesting and useful.

> "...have not thought about trimming the large surface..."

Moi is a great tool, but as Michael said many times, its shelling and offsetting (and also filleting) routines are rather weak.
I've experienced many times that dealing with large and complex trimmed surfaces,
a winner solution is to follow the ancient Latin saying : "Divide et impera".

P.S. Just for fun I want to try to build the same engraved heart, using my "Lightweight Modelling" technique,
in order to obtain a final solid, made by a fairy lower amount of control points.

Best,

Hi again Stefan!

> "I have now a solution which does not require to trim the large surface, in order to get a solid heart."

Nice technique! Thanks a lot!

> "It seems that rebuild is a must!"

Yeah, it's absolutely necessary in particular situations, especially where a complex trimmed surface edges
or complex "unstructured" curves are used as input for the "project" command.

See you,

what is a way to make such surface and extrusion from curve?

You can also use the Flow function! :)

Alas with the heart above one of the curve is too more complex in one pass even in using the Rebuild function! :(
Maybe with the V4 and 64 bits...

Here the concept :)

Hi glmr,

re:
> what is a way to make such surface and extrusion from curve?

Which particular surface and extrusion are you asking about?

- Michael

I'm asking about actions between 1st and 2nd screenshot of topicstarter. I can do a rojection of pattern, but I can't make a surface on solid from the projection

Hi glmr,

after you did the projection do a "rebuild" of the curves, by entering the word "rebuild" into the coordinate input in MoI's bottom menu. Once that is done simply use the trim command. After that join all surfaces at once to get a solid.

Regards
Stefan

thanks. I don't really understand how, but it works!

Just a little update, i finalized my model and uploaded a short turntable animation on Vimeo.
Hope you like the final result.

Thanks again Marco for the valuable help!

https://vimeo.com/190274111

Regards
Stefan

You're welcome Stefan.

I have seen the turntable animation and you achieved a very beautiful result!
A very nice jewel.
I congratulate you on this idea.

See you.