I have a curved 'rectangular' section curve. Why won't planar follow it. When I extrude, it creates gaps so it's impossible to boolean it together.

It is possible these are two separate issues. I've seen MoI fill in shapes outside the lines. I suspect it has to do with how it triangulates the surfaces for rendering -- possibly a number precision issue at a high zoom level. When this has happened to me, the model was correct, the rendering just didn't totally match the model.

For the extrude issue, maybe try copying your curve, move the copy to the end of where you want it extruded to and use loft to connect them. Not sure if it will help, but it would be a different way to get the same shape.

Post your 3dm is always a very good idea...that avoid tones of misunderstand and win many time! ;)

This is maybe just artifact of rendering ...go to options to regulate "Mesh angle" and "add details to Inflexions"...
Piece is geometrically good but not the rending for win display time! ;)

Trying to get a spring assembly!

Hi Gordon, yes like dferyance writes above the "won't follow it" problem is a display artifact where there the display mesh isn't getting quite enough triangles in that area to make it look smooth. The actual surface is curved there and fine, it's just a display thing. The display is oriented around doing things quickly and so there are various compromises in it like this one. So that's just something to ignore. That particular display glitch will tend to happen on objects that are long but only shallowly curved like you have there.

For the gaps thing yes that sounds like it might be a different thing and if you can post your .3dm file that would help to answer that part.

- Michael

Hi Gordon, yes when you do planar there that's just a display artifact your actual surface is fine. Curves and edges are displayed at a higher level than surfaces so they will tend to give you the most accurate view of the true geometry.

That your objects won't boolean union together after extruding them is a different problem, that's probably because there is too much of a gap between them:





And the other side has some misalignment:





To combine something like that it would be better to work on the curves and get them all trued up and extrude them as one piece like this, see attached .3dm file:



- Michael

I see! So it's just a graphics issue then.

Also though, I would like to leave all the elements separate but add a fillet to each edge and then join them together. I assume this is possible?

Thanks

G

Hi Gordon,

re:
> Also though, I would like to leave all the elements separate but add a fillet to each edge and then join them
> together. I assume this is possible?

It is if they are aligned better, you would need to avoid having the gaps and overlaps shown above to get them to combine together.

Make sure you are using object snaps when positioning things so that you get things placed accurately, don't just move things around so they look visually close.

It looks like the smaller end cap lines on the left sides are not quite vertical. You can get that tuned up by turning on control points, selecting the end points and squishing it down to get "flat" snap:





Or you can also use the Transform > Align tool for that.

But also the top and bottom curves are not exact copies of each other, they're slightly different so when you try to stack them up they don't match up all the way. You would want the top and bottom to be exact duplicates so they'll line up with each other when you stack the pieces up.

- Michael