Hi Michael,

Sorry, questions like this may cause you some frustration or irritation… I'll understand if you say "go away kid, you bother me!"

I've run into an interesting bug that I haven’t been able to figure out. After a fresh start of MoI, if I use my CutWalls script to cut a single window into one or more solids, the solids' names are preserved as one would expect. However if I then either Undo or reload the saved model and use the script in the exact same way the solids' names are deleted. Making it stranger still, if I point the script at a surface or joined surface and do the same operations, the surface names are never deleted. So basically the script only works correctly once after a fresh start of MoI, any subsequent use and the names of solids being cut are deleted.

I have narrowed the loss of object name down to the boolean difference operation, and of course a normal Construct > Boolean Difference behaves normally—object names are not deleted. Same issue with MoI v4 and v5 May beta.

With v5 the puzzle is more interesting in that solids which are part of a group do not have their names deleted.

Prior to the boolean difference, the script seeks to determine the thickness of the wall by creating a probe line normal to the curve and doing an intersect on the wall and the curve. It then moves the curve slightly outside of the wall and extrudes a solid which extends slightly through the wall on the other side (to be able to cut surfaces as well as solids). That solid is then used by the boolean difference to cut the wall objects.

The script is designed to be able to cut multiple windows and walls, and allows the walls to be of varying thickness. To accomplish this, the script loops through the set of window curves probing the wall behind each, making solid cutters, frames and glass as necessary. There is a single boolean difference at the end of the script to do all the cutting at once. (if I put the boolean difference into the loop, then the objects being cut replicate…)

If there are multiple windows being cut, then even with a fresh start of MoI, the names of the solids are being deleted.

All of this leaves me thinking that there is some state information that’s somehow not getting cleaned up, and that the various operations that the script performs are causing something to leak into the boolean difference, triggering the behavior. Beyond that hunch, I’m a bit clueless. Doesn't matter if input #2 (keep objects) is true or false.

To reproduce, create a box about 6” thick to represent a wall object, then draw a closed planar curve on one side to represent a window opening to be cut. Name the two objects then execute CutWalls. Select the box as the base object and the curve as the object to subtract. Don’t need to tick any of the option checkboxes. The window will be cut and the box’s name will be removed. Or, the other case, put two window curves on the box & the names are always removed.

--Larry

Hi Larry, I'll try to take a look later but this is a great example of why I don't try to advertise that scripting in Moi is a thing that you can do, because it can be very difficult to come up to speed with complex scripts and try to support them.

- Michael

Hi Larry, so for losing the object name - it looks like that's happening because on the result of a boolean where the new object has pieces in it that come from multiple objects, the new object's name will be inherited from the ancestor object that was first selected.

That's so there is a way to control which object will take precedence for keeping the top level name when doing boolean union.

In your script the thing that is different compared to the regular boolean difference command is that the cutting objects are "loose objects" generated inside the script and haven't been added into the geometry database and haven't ever been selected. It happens in that case that it gets the default selection order value of 0 and that makes the "assign top level object name from earliest selected original object" function think that the cutting objects have the priority.

I'll see about using some other method for this situation where some objects have never been selected before, but for the time being if you insert this line indicated with >>> <<< into the script does it clear it up?

    var factory = moi.command.createFactory( 'booleandifference');
    factory.setInput( 0, baseObjs);
>>>    cutters.setProperty( 'selected', true );  <<<
    factory.setInput( 1, cutters);
    factory.setInput( 2, false); // Don't keep objects 
    factory.commit();

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Indeed, selecting the loose cutting objects prior to the boolean difference clears up both the loss of the name as well as the Undo/reload behavior.

I really appreciate your time and insight, but at the same time appreciate that it diverts you from your other objectives. Clearly my hunch that there was some state data leaking and causing unexpected behavior was off base, but it looked to me like there might be an issue worth reporting. To be clear, I don’t want to put you in the position of having to support something I wrote, but I also get that you potentially wind up in that situation regardless of my intentions. I suppose it is part of the blessing and the curse of providing the opportunity for users to contribute to your environment. As I’ve said before, I think that the scripting capabilities are one of MoI’s many stellar attributes.

Thanks again for your willingness to explain and provide background information!!

--Larry

Hi Larry, I'm glad that solved it for the time being! I think I'll update this so that if any of the contributing source objects has never been selected before (which only happens with scripting) it will use the order that the objects have been set on the factory. That should then give a way to control it with boolean union for scripts and also boolean difference will automatically give priority to the base objects over cutting objects since that's in a lower factory input.

Thanks for reporting the problem.

- Michael

Here’s an example of why I wrote this script. I have a modeling project for an old house which has a bunch of windows and doors, many more than I wanted to cut one at a time. So after I created the interior and exterior walls, I drew 2D curves on one side of each wall where there was to be a window or door. The curves were named Windows and Doors and the walls were named Ext. Walls and Int. Walls. I then ran the CutWalls script, selected Int. Walls and Ext. Walls as the base objects, and selected Windows as the objects to subtract, chose 0.75” frames named Window Frames, and Glass for the glass. The script then cut, framed and glazed 39 windows. Next I ran the script again, selecting the walls again as the base objects, but this time selected Doors and didn’t have it put the glass in. The script made 13 door frames. So, all the doors and windows were done in less than a minute. :-)

--Larry

Here’s the before and after:

Excellent!

Hi Pilou,

I added CutWalls-009_fr.zip to the first post in this thread. No changes to the UI, but several fixes to the code from the 0.7 version you've got on your site.
https://moiscript.weebly.com/portes-et-fenecirctres.html

--Larry

Done! :)