I'm trying to "drill" evenly spaced holes in an object (the object on the left), but I can't seem to figure out how to do it.

I would like to drill holes (like in the plane on the right) on the object on the left.

Any ideas?

Hi YHWH_777, if you've already got the pattern that you want on that flat plane, the easiest method is probably to use the new for v3 Transform > Deform > Flow command that can wrap objects from one base line or base plane to a target surface, it's kind of like texture mapping an object.

The way that would work is that you would draw an additional plane under the plane that you want to morph, you then select the object you want to morph, run the Flow command, and then pick the base plane and then the surface to morph on to.

Also for bending something from a straight shape to a curved shape instead of using surface-to-surface flow you could instead use curve-to-curve flow which might be a bit easier for you to set up. To do that you would rotate your hole surface to be vertical and then draw a line underneath it, and then you can again use Flow and map from that line to the circular edge of the cylinder part, which will in effect bend your surface.

See here for an example of that kind of bending action:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5097.2

If you want to use Surface-to-surface Flow where you map from a base plane to a curved surface, you need to pick on particular areas of each surface to align the mapping, there's some information on that here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4795.10
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4442.24

There are also a bunch of links collected with examples for Flow here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4856.2

- Michael

Michael:

Thanks, but I already tried to use the flow tool over the past few days to no avail. That is why I am wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to make this work.

Why not take a circular surface of circles for make the Flow ? ;)

You can also take a concentred cluster of cylinders and make a little Boolean Diff ;)
Take a cylinder - View Right incline it as you want - Transform / Array / Circular as you want
Boolean Diff



If you want absolutly a square grid of Cylinders or any special gride
- draw a vertical line at the center (or any place following your wishes) to a top
- Draw your grid of lines from ground to top
- Draw a vertical cylinder at the center
- Transform / Orient / Line-Line none Copy enable
so copy your original cylinder along the lines on quarter or half quarter of the grid (very easy ! )
- then some Mirrors Symmetry
and Boolean Diff as above
All that take 1 minute :)



Maybe there are more tricky things for Orient a grid of vertical cylinders (or any objects) to a single point in one move ? (Script ? ) ;)

Hi YHWH_777,

> Thanks, but I already tried to use the flow tool over the past few days
> to no avail. That is why I am wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to
> make this work.

Can you please post the 3DM model file with the geometry in it that you have been trying to Flow without success?

That would then give me something more direct to look at and give you feedback about rather than just a screenshot.

Like I was describing above, probably the easiest set up for doing Flow to bend something around a circle is to draw a line curve and a circle curve, and use those as the base and target objects.

The way that is set up is like this - here there's an object to flow (the one with the holes), and then a line curve beneath it and then a circle curve off to the side, like this:



The first step is to select the object you want to deform. Note that _only_ the object that is to be deformed should be selected in this first step - not the base or target objects, those are done in subsequent picks so that they can be individually identified to the Flow command. So your screen should look like this (neither base line nor target circle curve selected yet, only object with holes in it):



Then run Transform > Deform > Flow. The prompt in the upper-right corner of the main window will say: "Select base curve or surface" - now at this point you want to click the line curve underneath to specify it as the base curve for the flow, like this:



Then you will be on to the next stage of the Flow command where you pick the target object - the prompt in the upper-right corner of the window will say "Select target curve near matching end" - now is when you select the circle to specify it as the target curve for the flow. That will then set up a flow from that line onto the circle like so:



You can then adjust the parameters like whether to stretch or not. If you want no stretching you probably want to create a plane and base line that has the same length as the circumference of your circle.

Hope this helps, I've attached the 3DM file for this example as well. Make sure to watch what the prompts say in the upper-right corner of the window, since those are what tell you what type of input MoI is expecting for you to give it next.

- Michael

A little drilling with the Flow function :)

Here is a version. In order to do the boolean subtract, found it necessary to
extrude the red circles by 0.2 mm (or units), then do the flow on to the cylinder.

Select the red circles, using style color, and do extrude of 0.2 mm, with checkbox of BOTH directions.
Select the red extrusions, hit flow, then select the planar rectangle, then the cylinder. Flow occurs after several seconds.

Select the cylinder, and all the red and rectangular regions, but not the red extruded circles on the cylinder. Invert selection
and change the color of those red extruded circles on the cylinder to green.

Next do the boolean subtract of the cylinder with the green extruded circles.




Maybe this is not exactly what you wanted... Or the easiest way...

Made a cylinder 2mm thick...

Thanks for all of the replies, but all of the replies are only offering a part of the solution. That is, you are drilling the holes on only one section of the object (either the half sphere at the top or the cylinder on the bottom). I need to the holes to cover the entire object.

Michael:

<< Can you please post the 3DM model file with the geometry in it that you have been trying to Flow without success?>>

Please find attached a 3DM file that includes the model that I would like covered with holes. I have also included a sample plane filled with holes to use with the flow command, but if that plane doesn't work or if there is a better way to do this then just ignore the plane.

Basically, I just want the surface of the object covered with holes that are relatively equally spaced (like in the image on the first post of this thread).

is this what you want?

beanworks:

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I was hoping to have the holes more equally spaced (sort of like the planes in the images that I have attached). If you will notice, the holes in your example are closer (in the x & y axis) at the top of the half-sphere and become more distant as they travel down the sphere.

Cleaver method Beanworks!

Reminds me of a cross between a salt shaker and a Dalek.

So seems my method above at the start of this thread will be perfect for the top sphere
and the method above by beanworks for the vertical cylinder will finish the object ;)

Frenchy:

While your method might be the solution, I have no idea what you are proposing. Can you please give a detailed step-by-step so that I could follow along?

Thanks.

< Can you please give a detailed step-by-step

Seems yet written ;)

If you want absolutly a square grid of holes or any special gride
- draw a vertical line at the center (or any place following your wishes) to a top
- Draw your grid of lines from ground to top
- Draw a vertical cylinder at the center
- Transform / Orient / Line-Line none Copy enable
so copy your original cylinder along the lines on quarter or half quarter of the grid (very easy ! )
- then some Mirrors Symmetry
- Return all and draw your spheric object
and Boolean Diff as above
and use the Beamfarmer or other method for the vertical cylinder side
All that take 1 minute :)

Frenchy:

Thanks for the reply, but I still don't understand what you are trying to explain. First, I don't understand why you are using angled cylinders and projecting them on a flat plane. Then what am I supposed to do with the flat plane?

Hi YHWH_777,

> Thanks for all of the replies, but all of the replies are only offering a part
> of the solution. That is, you are drilling the holes on only one section of
> the object (either the half sphere at the top or the cylinder on the bottom).
> I need to the holes to cover the entire object.

Your initial image sort of suggested that you were targeting the cylinder, because of the nature of the totally regular flat pattern that you showed.

The cylinder is equal in proportion along its height, so a regular pattern like that is possible to fit on the cylinder without distorting it.

The sphere portion is much different than that - the sphere does not have a constant amount of surface area on it, as you travel vertically up the sphere it reduces in surface area, until finally collapsing at a point near the top.

So take for example this upper ring of your sphere shown in red here:




You can see there that ring of the sphere is smaller in circumference than the circumference of a circle taken from the cylinder.

That means that as you move upwards along the sphere, there is less physical area available in those regions are compared to the cylinder. So there is simply not as much area to fit the same number of holes as you travel up the sphere.

But meanwhile look at your pattern that you showed initially, notice the top line of your pattern:



The top line of your pattern that you want to match to the tip of the sphere contains 20 circles just exactly the same as the parts that you want to put on the cylinder. It's not possible to do that without shrinking or distorting the holes because of the greatly reduced surface area in those regions.

It's sort of like you're asking how to put 5 gallons of water into a 1 gallon bucket.... You can't - it just does not fit!

Probably what you want is to have a different number of holes in the circumference as you get closer to the collapsed together point at the top of the sphere.

To get that, you probably want to create a set of cylinders like Bemfarmer shows above, but when you shift from the cylinder area to the sphere area, you will need to both reduce the number of copies of the cylinders going and also stagger them by rotating the starting one before you replicate it (using Array circular) in the top view so that the rows are also staggered more as you move upwards.

You may in fact need to just manually place the cylinders in the sphere area where you judge they have good spacing rather than trying to automatically generate them.


But anyway, the type of image that you showed initially where you have the exact same number of objects in the upper rows of your 2D pattern simply can not fit onto the reducing surface area of the sphere as it shrinks down to a single point at the top. An actual 2D pattern of it would look more like a smaller number of items in the region of the pattern that corresponds to the shrinking area. Unless you want the holes to be distorted and squished down?

- Michael

Hi YHWH_777, thanks for posting the example file.

It is possible to flow what you are showing in that example file - you would need to form the target surface as a single surface by making a longer single-segment profile curve that you revolve. Then the result would look like this:



I think that's not what you are really looking for, but it's basically what you are actually asking to create with that flat pattern having the same 12 holes in its upper area as it does in the lower area. As you can see as the pattern nears the tip of the shape where the surface collapses down to a point, the horizontal surface area becomes smaller and smaller and so it follows that the 12 circles in your pattern get squashed down more and more as you approach that area.

So you probably don't actually want to map a totally regular/uniform 2D pattern like you show in the plane there, shown in 2D the pattern that you seem to actually want would have a smaller number of larger ovoid-ish shapes for the pieces that were in the shrinking surface area zone.

It's probably easier for you to instead place cylinders as the cutting objects instead of trying to map a 2D pattern like that.

- Michael

Hi YHWH_777, how about this version here (model attached as hole_pattern_model.3dm) :



This was made generally in the same way as Bemfarmer's example above with a couple of slight differences.

But the starting row is the same with an array along a joined curve like this:





Then pick the bottom one and array it and decide how many copies you want, I used 12:



Then to get the staggering layout, select every other one and rotate it by a half increment. To do that run the Transform > Rotate command, pick the point for the center of rotation and then for the rotation angle type in 360/24 to rotate it by one-half of an array step around:



Now use Transform > Array > Circular again on all of these again with a 12 item count:



Now when you get to the top you have to use a smaller item count for those ones up there since as I described previously there is not as much physical surface area in those spots. If you were to just use a 12 count array up there the pieces would collide into one another.

I used 12 items for the very first ring though where it still has plenty of area, then for the next one up from that only 10 items (this one should be staggered by a rotation of 360/20 instead), and then only 5 items for the last ring.

If you don't like the spacing between items that those counts happen to produce, you may need to just manually place your cylinders to a particular spot where you like the spacing.

Hope this helps!

- Michael