Hi all, Hi Michael,
I began a project this morning bearing in mind that MOI could make severals V-shaped rebate instantly from a curve (open or closed) apply on a solid object like the great "pipe tool". In sum, I realize that it was impossible for the moment ... Thank you for confirmation. This could be useful in the future to simulate V bit work for a cnc 3d model or to create new 3D texture for 3D model ... ?
More generally, a tool to realize "instant rebate" from curves is very interesting to have in the future from my point of view.

Regards,

Pierre.

A simple Sweep 1 rail ( section x,y,z = Profil, curve = Rail) --> volume
Then boolean Diff between Original volume and this one
don't make the trick ?

Thanks Pilou but not really an instant tool (like the pipe tool) and with lot V curves like photo 4, making boolean operation could be a mess ( for 3D texture for exemple with big amount of curves !)? ... I'm going to try this noon ...

Pierre.

Pilou,

I'm just using your "classic" solution but :
- choosing perpandicular position from rail for each profile is time (on spherical object for exemple) ...
- Boolean operation between V extrusion from curve and a cube for exemple take huge time ... just for one curve !.

Don't really work for me for making 3d texture ...or other thing like 3D furniture construction détails ...

Pierre.

<< Boolean operation between V extrusion from curve and a cube for exemple take huge time ... just for one curve !

Curious its' instant for me on my 10 years old computer! Make a big handel to the section profil for be sure that the volume is out of!
(here the left part past to the trapeze )



<< V-shaped rebate instantly from a curve (open or closed) apply on a solid object like the great "pipe tool"

the Pipe tool is not "instant" !

Pilou,

- Pipe 1 or 2 scripts tool are "instants tools" ... (instantané, je le maintiens ! ).

- Don't understand why it takes long time to make a boolean ... i'm going to try again ...

Pierre.

<< Pipe 1 or 2 scripts tool are "instants tools"

Depending of the path of the curve ;) And full parameters or not!

This take 11 seconds on my old one computer! ;) 3 Seconds with just outer radius (time of calculate)

Bonjour Pierre, I do want to add some more kind of "bundled up" tools for making more operations happen directly from curves, but there are some more simple areas that will come first for that type of thing - groove cutting is rather complex, both in potentially needing a lot of parameters to control the groove shape itself and also with a fundamental difficulty of possibly generating a self-intersecting cutting shape if you have any bends in the path curve that have a bend radius that's smaller than the width of the groove.

That possibility to pretty easily have self intersecting cutting objects is a major complication for this kind of operation.

So because of that the first area of these kinds of tools will be more focused on making a direct indentation or protrusion of a shape by cutting out an entire closed outline, basically something to automate things more like the stuff shown here:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3024.4
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4010.4
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3318.1
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4791.13

That's basically a higher priority to get stuff more like that working first mostly because I think that type of stuff can be done more robustly, there are a lot more potenial issues with grooves.

MoI is probably not in general the best choice for those kinds of relief/emboss type constructions like all the examples that you show - something that's polygon mesh based such as ArtCAM where they build a mesh result with elevation based off of bitmap colors or a mesh sculpting mechanism like ZBrush or 3D-Coat are just better suited for that stuff rather than NURBS modeling techniques.

NURBS modeling works well when more of the pieces involved are actually fully defined by profile curves - I know that you are also wanting to use profile curves for that style of modeling as well but it's using them in a somewhat less direct sense in that the actual geometry that you want is a kind of byproduct of the profile curve and not so much a direct interaction with the profile curve. This indirect type profile usage has the problem that it becomes poorly defined (from an exact geometric type meaning which is more how MoI is oriented on working) in certain areas of the shape, like especially something that is trying to build a sweep path will have problems in places where things go around a tight bend.

The "2.5D" type approach that ArtCAM uses is pretty well suited for those particular kinds of shapes, it's really optimized specifically for those kinds of things. So there are certainly other tools out there that could already help you to build those kinds of things much more easily than you can in MoI. But those tools are pretty specific for that type of stuff, you couldn't build a car engine for example in a 2.5D tool but you can do stuff like that in MoI.

So just in general MoI and the overall way that MoI works is not especially suited for that type of stuff you are showing, there are tools out there that are better than MoI at handling those specific kinds of jobs right now.

- Michael

Pierre,

Do you want to actually produce a 3D model with a V groove in the design, or do you want to produce a rendered image of what the final carved object will look like?

If you are wanting to just make a rendered image of the final result, I would recommend getting a render program that supports negative displacement mapping.

Maxwell is an example render program that I have experience with using this technique.

You would create a black & white, evenly graduated displacement map from your carved design. This can easily be done in a vector program like Corel Draw. The white center areas represent the point (deepest part) of your V cutter, the black represents the widest part of the cutter. The graduated gray area represents the V taper of the cutter.

The settings in Maxwell for displacement mapping will allow you to simulate the V cut in a very convincing way without the need to actually model the cuts.

For example, I created the text engraving in this ring render with a displacement map (my engraving tool has a round bottom rather than a V shape). I've modeled text engraving in MoI as well - each method has advantages and disadvantages.

Ed

hello,

Thanks you for your replies.
I would like to produce MOI 3D models with Vcarve patterns on them for my 3D gallery (it wasn't a cnc question for me). I think i'm going to go back to Sketchup tool (follow me tool) importing 2d open curves (path) from MOI. I thought it wasn't so complex to do in MOI ... I'm going to try.

Pierre.

The problem i have now is opened 2D curves lines on 3D object faces from MOI are not imported in sketchup or 3DS format !!! Damned. A solution ???

I think i have found the solution in Sketchup :

- 1) Fredo curves plugin : great.
- 2) Profile builder from Smustard maybe.

Pierre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcpGwlfu3vU&feature=player_embedded

Hi Pierre, if you do a "Save As" and have both curves and surfaces, the curves are not written to SKP format in that case, that's because the curves can be kind of strange in a certain way to export since they get embedded in objects because SketchUp merges things together.

But if you select both surfaces and curves and do a File > Export instead of just a "Save As" then they should export.

Also the curve SKP export can occasionally crash inside the SketchUp library in some cases when it does end up merging some curve vertices together with other neighboring ones so make sure to save your work before doing that kind of export.

- Michael