I am trying combine all the elements in this piece.
Some extruded bits, some lofted bits.
I need to make them all one so I can do a Boolean Difference from a block and take the negative profile for some CNC work.
I also included the file.
help.3dm (82.6 KB)
Boolean Union probably would work if you made the corners as I suggested.
My advice to you is forget about booleans. Reliance on booleans will just make you a less proficient Rhino user.
You can make what you want far more reliably and accurately using the surface modeling tools. There is nothing booleans can do that you can’t do yourself and when you learn to do it yourself you can usually get to the end result you want a lot faster.
NoBooleans.3dm (2.5 MB)
That looks great, how did you attach that.
I will also start digging into the tools.
Not sure what you mean by “attach that”. If you are asking about how to make surfaces that share an edge attach to each other, the command is Join. It works for curves and surfaces that are within tolerance.
Here is a file showing how to quickly make the rest after making the 8 surfaces that comprise the sloping part on top that was covered in the earlier post.
NoBoolean_construction.3dm (2.6 MB)
The commands used are ExtrudeCrv, Join, Cap and Trim.
When you use the Extrude command you should use the SplitAtTangents=Yes option. Also for the type of work you are doing its a good idea to go to Options>General and uncheck the Use Extrusions box.
well there is quite a bit of cleaning up to do, but even if you just remove all the unneeded surfaces you are still left with this nasty edges which are open and will prevent you from getting a closed object.
i managed to close it with ConnectSrf, then use Untrim on the tiny square hole that is left.
one surface was overlapping, you can also use ConnectSrf here, then it all joins together.
when you have overlapping planar surfaces and boolean (which in v8 does merge the faces) did not merge properly you can use MergeAllCoplanarFaces to clean up. but i would also suggest to think about modelling that easier, and learn to be precise in modelling.
how faces should look like
Joining Elements.3dm (134.7 KB)
