Full Version: Best way to make a shell

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Good day.
I am making a part of a gearbox that I want to 3dprint.
Attached the items in orange is what I need to Boolean out from a solid.
What is the best way to make a shell of the orange piece to have it 2mm thick?

Tnx1

Attachments:
shelling.3dm

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Hi Matadem, some of the pieces are smaller than your desired 2mm thickness.

That means that it won't be possible to form the shell by having an offset of every single face. Some of your faces need to be totally consumed.

Is your current solid meant to be the inside or the outside of the final shell?

- Michael

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The solid I have provided is the inner hollow....so 8t needs to shell 2mm out fromnthe orange piece.

I was thinking maybe duplicate,scale the pieces and then boolean it ?

Tnx.

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Hi Matadem, the easiest way currently is to export out to OnShape which can handle this type of operation automatically.

I've attached a result from there.

re:
> I was thinking maybe duplicate,scale the pieces and then boolean it ?

No, you would need to do offsets, not scaling.

You can get the "raw materials" to work with in MOI if you want to try it - do Edit > Separate on your solid to break it into individual surfaces. Then select all the surfaces and use Construct > Offset to generate offset surfaces.

That will give you pieces to use. In areas of your model that had 2 surfaces meeting smoothly the offsets will be touching and can be joined together.

In other areas you will need to trim pieces or construct extensions between them.

It's a lot of work though so I would recommend using OnShape. This may become a lot easier to do directly in MOI when I get the ACIS shelling hooked up.

- Michael

Attachments:
shelling_onshape.step

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Please do I do not want to learn another cad...but sometimes that is the only way.
it turned out nice.

Tnx!

Image Attachments:
shellf.JPG 

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Hi Matadem,

Attached is a test I did with making Moi's shell command use the ACIS library.

The initial result seems to be really good! Seems like just one surface was having a problem but it only took a minute to repair it.

Could you please take a look and see if this result would work for you?

- Michael

Attachments:
shelling_moi_acis.3dm

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I've also got ACIS direct editing "move face" set up now too.

It's looking very good too, it enables edits like this below.

It's just built in to the regular Transform > Move command, when you select face sub-objects as the stuff to move:




It's a very versatile editing function with zero added UI complexity since it is built into the regular Transform > Move command.

It is looking like MoI v5 is going to have huge improvements in core modeling functionality while maintaining its simple and uncluttered fast and fluid UX.

It has taken a while for getting fillets to be tuned up a bit, the ACIS authors have done a lot of filleting fixes for me.

- Michael

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Yes that file will work...
It seems with those added features will be a time saver for me as well.

Will v5 be finalized this year still?

Tnx!

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Hi Matadem,

re:
> Will v5 be finalized this year still?

Yes I think so.

There will still be work to improve ACIS (both inside ACIS and in MoI's integration layer) to be done in future versions.

But it is working well enough now that it's clearly a massive improvement.

- Michael

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This is huge!

Congratulations Michael......

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Thanks Burr! Another useful thing is I can now set up a delete face tool that will automatically extend and intersect the remaining faces to restore corners like this:



- Michael

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Holly smoke!

This is another level, can’t wait to play with it.
Lots of applications in everyday work, life is good.

Thank you Michael.

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Wowwww !!!

It seems to be cool

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Step by step to the perfection! :)
And more dynamic than before!

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Hi Marky, yes I am very excited to get a bunch of new useful tools going!

There will be more stuff to fix but it seems like the ACIS developers are making improvements and fixes pretty well. Slowly, but it's happening.

It looks like there will be a lot of things that can now be handled directly inside MoI without needing to export to another program.

I will put together a new v5 beta release before the end of this next week.

Things are looking very good for stability so the final v5 version can be done soon I think.

So lots of great things on the very near horizon! :)

I'm also feeling optimistic about the longer term horizon as well. Having a partner company that is actively working on improving their library will be a big deal.

Thanks,
- Michael

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Yeeehaaaa!!!!! ;-)

Martin.

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Michael,

Great to read of your enthusiasm and optimism about the ACIS integration! MoI is such a wonderful tool and you have been steadfast in your vision for it, I look forward to the next beta as well as the releases to come. Well done Sir!

--Larry

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Nice to see the ACIS integration paying off !

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re: PaQ
> Nice to see the ACIS integration paying off !

Thanks! :) I think that all the fillet cases that you've previously sent will be working in the next beta.

It's been slow but they've been able to make progress with bug fixes.

I've been waiting for some of the fixes for up to 6 months. But when the fixes have been delivered they seem to usually be legit and not just quick hacks that make one case work but making other cases fail.

It is generally a quite difficult area to work on without causing regressions as a side effect.

I've been kind of in limbo as I've waited to see what their response was going to be like. Finally I'm feeling confident that it is not a dead codebase and they are both willing and able to make progress. Slowly... but surely.

And now that fillets are on a decent track and don't need full time babysitting I'm able to exploit some various other useful stuff as well.

It's been a lot of hard work, drama, and a lot of uncertainty... I guess you can see why I've been reluctant to attempt it previously.

- Michael

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Wow, these new ACIS-fueled possibilities are great, Michael!

I've moved back to Mac, and have just reinstalled MoI.

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