This is Day 6 or 7 of me spending 12 hours a day attempting to accomplish this task, lol… (weeps uncontrollably)
I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve boolean unioned and flowed a complex pattern around another object, and have analyzed it to confirm it is indeed a perfect object, yet it still fails as a cutting object when I try to boolean difference into the larger object to create the intended indentation effect.
Below is a link to the OneDrive .3dm file. I’m only including the necessary components (1 solid cutting object and 1 object to subtract from) as to keep the file size as small as humanly possible, but even so, it’s 119mb, so fair warning.
when booleans fails is often because of a bad intersection curve. check the intersection command and look if there are open curves.
in other cases could be coincident or overlapping surfaces, then, using agan the Intersect command, you can use those curves to split each object and delete what’s not needed.
When it fails there are dozens and dozens of points where it states a bad surface intersection (it’s a complex file), but as I said, there aren’t any curve-based problems and the object is fully capped and fully a solid, so it almost a has to be coincident overlapping surfaces.
Hmm, it appears even tho it’s just two solid objects, that the file is too complex (or my Lenovo Thinkpad P52 is too weak) to accomplish the task of splitting the cutting object.
I’m going to play around and see if I can find a way around this apparent Boolean Difference glitch.
I don’t think this is ever going to work, not only because it is so complex, but in the first place because the seams of your pipes are on the surface.
For rendering I’d bump map it but since you already created the pattern, you can do this with V-Ray clipper:
I really appreciate that, Gijs. I’ll call it quits, then. I think 7 12-hour days of trying to get this to work are enough, lol (definitely wish I’d known that earlier, tho). I was just so stubbornly positive that there had to be a way. Good point about the seams of the pipes being on the surface.
I use Vray but unless you mean clipping mask, I’m not all that familiar with Clipper. I’ll see if there’s a tutorial out there that can walk me through accomplishing that.
if it was just for render, using textures whould be the first option, you can also use displacement for a more real depth. then you only have to worry about the surface mapping:
I’ll render it out for a looming contest, even if Rhino’s apparent limitations force me to dumb down the end product.
Having spent 70-80 hours trying to get this to work to no avail has definitely taught me a valuable lessen, though: Steer clear of indenting patterns into my designs! It might seem straight forward; it’s very clearly not!!
Hmm… Not sure how that could’ve occurred, unless “Flow Along Surface” caused it. If that’s indeed what caused it, perhaps I should stay clear of the “Flow Along Surface” command altogether as that’s definitely not OK. Thanks, Diego.
Maybe you can generate a properly closed panel, which you can then repeat to achieve the pattern, and then use “Flow along the surface.”
this will make things much easier for you
Hey Vikthor, thanks for the assist. Seeing your solution, I was very clearly going about it the wrong way. Instead of wrapping linework and then piping or piping and properly closing the pattern and THEN wrapping, I could’ve flowed panels across the surface, which take the shape of the siding as opposed to trying to boolean difference one into the other.
