Hello,
I have created a metaball layers (wanted a solid mesh but I could not figure that out), and I want to solid difference in a rectangle. So i can take that, contour it and laser cut that. But right now my solid difference is taking so much time and is not subtracting exactly from my box. Please help me, I have attached the file.
metaball .gh (32.8 KB)
hello
I converted metaballs to mesh.
Also cut them completely from a solid. Check out my algorithm.
metaball 1.gh (32.5 KB)
Hey, thank you so much. But, I want the other way around. I want to Boolean the box with those meta balls. I am trying to exchange the input right now. But it is taking so much time. 
I tried this but I dont want the lines I want it to be smooth curves.
I tried it with a different script using dendro plugin. I have tries boolean differnce as a mesh in rhino after baking. it worked. but it would be nice to figure out a simpler way and dendro balls does not give the flexibility of different sized balls.
dendroballs_LD.gh (13.6 KB)
What’s a metaball? Why not use spheres?
Which one of the four sets of GH components should we look at?
The old Area component takes 6.4 seconds to get the area of six circular polyline curves 
R7 Area takes only 5ms.
the spheres would not connect each other? Thats what I thought so.
The first one on top. Sorry I have to clean up the file. Ignore the plugins and thanks for the area info, I will update it.
I see several problems with connected metaballs when trying to loft the section curves… 
I am SO DONE with metaballs 
No fun at all. I understand some of the issues with lofting intersection curves but saw too much weirdness and lost some work. YUCK!
Hello
I didn’t read all the thread but now you could use Isopod for Metaballs. So @Joseph_Oster could be happy to have just Legacy components 
But you need R8
First you’ll have to find the good radius and good smoothing. In order to go fast I just use a slice. But you can put more slices if you want. It is important to have orange and blue, transition is between the 2 colors
Then you can use the dam to see the result; augment the resolution for fine mesh.
And other thing it is completly useless to make it a volume if at the end you just want the contour !!!
just do boolean on curves
Thank you so much. I currently don’t have Rhino 8, but I’ll go to the university lab and check it out. I also want to add positives to the volume long with the negatives, if that is possible?
I tried doing this manually, but it would be efficient if i can do it in the script.
I added in the end of my answer a way without R8 and without volume. You don’t need contour, you don’t need volume for laser cutting slices !
Yes, I could open it. Thank you so much!! Such a life saver!
I will start using line array. I am used to doing contour, that is why I tried that.
Could you please help me adding the positives to the rectangle?
You can first use region union between positive and rectangle, then apply region difference.
I don’t know what that means @laurent_delrieu but it sounds like metaballs are COMPLETELY USELESS without plugins. Note to self: NEVER waste time with metaballs
Metaballs result can be meshed but you will need rhino and tools that are not in Grasshopper. Rhino Command MeshFromPoints, see these discussions
