Thanks Steven, Well I'm going to try getting some 3d prints made and will try both methods. Your way is quickest, but the files are big if I try and keep sharper detail. The alternative which I now have working is to break the 3000 cube model into its individual pieces using Joeys plugin, then Boolean them all back together using a script supplied by Peter B. This is a much slower method when dealing with so many cubes, but it works and generates files that are much smaller. Thanks again for your input.
On 28 November 2013 19:20, Steven Caron <[email protected]> wrote: > if you need those perfect edges from the original cube then booleans will > probably be your best bet. otherwise using my custom ice nodes you can > decrease the voxel size a lot (increasing total voxels) and use the > 'adaptivity' parameter on the volume to mesh node to reduce the density to > something manageable. > > > On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 5:29 AM, Chris Marshall <[email protected] > > wrote: > >> Thanks Peter, much appreciated. I shall give it a go and report back. >> Cheers >> >> >> >> On 28 November 2013 12:49, <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> as matt said, first separate each polygon island. >>> there are some scripts out there that do this, but worst case: select >>> with polygon island filter, then extract and so on. >>> >>> then boolean all of them one at a time - in the top right of the image I >>> attached, was the line of vbscript I used for this: >>> >>> for i = 1 to 71 >>> ApplyGenOp “BooleanGenUnion”, , “polymsh” & i – 1 & “;cube” & i, 3, >>> siPersistentOperation, siKeepGenOpInputs >>> next >>> >>> It expects there to be a series of objects named cube1, cube2,... >>> (select all your extracted meshes, alt+enter for a multippg and rename them >>> – they should now have sequential names) and a series of objects polymsh0, >>> polymsh1,... which are the results of each boolean. >>> it’s not very smart for naming, so create the first boolean by hand, >>> duplicate it and name it polymsh0. >>> Now it should find all subsequent booleans which will be named >>> polymsh1,polymsh2 and so on - that get created by the script. >>> >>> it runs a few seconds and the very last polymsh should be the result of >>> all booleans, *if nothing went wrong*. >>> >>> If it has only part of the objects, that’s because somewhere along the >>> line a boolean didn’t work – and resulted in an empty mesh. So find the >>> last one before the empty one, and boolean them by hand. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* Chris Marshall <[email protected]> >>> *Sent:* Thursday, November 28, 2013 12:30 PM >>> *To:* [email protected] >>> *Subject:* Re: skin lots of cubes >>> >>> OK I accept that, it's not ideal but it's a solution. I'd rather get >>> the result you have with the multiple booleans / hard edges, which is what >>> I was after, but how are you doing it? >>> >>> >>> >>> On 28 November 2013 11:26, <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> I’m kind of with Matt on this. >>>> If it’s simple cubes and no rounded corners you’re after, booleans >>>> would do. >>>> >>>> see the attached, the middle one is a scripted boolean between 70 cubes. >>>> Nothing so fancy as what Matt suggests – just a boolean between two >>>> cubes, then a boolean between the result and a third cube and so on. >>>> >>>> I was surprised to see that you can get something acceptable with >>>> rounded corners even, depending on how demanding you are. >>>> the one on top has the rounded corners shader - which unfortunately >>>> only considers the convex angles. >>>> the one below has a rounded bevel on all edges – so concavities are >>>> treated as well – but there are some nasty spikes. >>>> >>>> Booleans generate less than ideal topologies for working with – doing >>>> smooth deformations on top of all of this will be troublesome. >>>> >>>> *From:* Matt Lind <[email protected]> >>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 27, 2013 7:25 PM >>>> *To:* [email protected] >>>> *Subject:* RE: skin lots of cubes >>>> >>>> >>>> Couldn’t you separate by polygon island, Boolean, then re-merge? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> That much could be scripted without too much trouble as you could do a >>>> distance search between cubes to know which cubes should be Booleaned with >>>> each other. You could script it to Boolean while merged, but that would >>>> require a little more work in the form of the algorithm. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Matt >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> *From:* [email protected] [mailto: >>>> [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Chris Marshall >>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 27, 2013 7:01 AM >>>> *To:* [email protected] >>>> *Subject:* skin lots of cubes >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Hi All, >>>> >>>> After managing to get a frozen poly mesh from hundreds of ICE cubes, >>>> what I need to do now is perform something like a boolean union on them all >>>> (though they are a single merged polygon), a bit like polygonizer but >>>> without the round corners. Any tools out there that could do that? >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Thanks >>>> >>>> Chris >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> >>> Chris Marshall >>> Mint Motion Limited >>> 029 20 37 27 57 >>> 07730 533 115 >>> www.mintmotion.co.uk >>> >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Chris Marshall >> Mint Motion Limited >> 029 20 37 27 57 >> 07730 533 115 >> www.mintmotion.co.uk >> >> > -- Chris Marshall Mint Motion Limited 029 20 37 27 57 07730 533 115 www.mintmotion.co.uk
