Single closed surface which intersects itself : HOW TO BOOLEAN?

i’m working on rhino 4, and the purpose is to get a clean, closed mesh to prototype it on a 3d printer.
I tried different things, but didn’t manage to solve the problem of the hollow of the folds.

waiting for your ideas… :wink:

Hi ipomeebleue - really, the best is to figure out a way to get this shape without the self intersections.

-Pascal

I agree with Pascal. The best plan of action is to stop and re-build the geometry. You will end up with a better surface with less time need as opposed to fighting with what I see here. A few suggestions:

  • if the surface was a rail sweep, make the path ‘less sharp’ You can do this with a edit–re-build or re-draw manually
  • if there are profile(s) that were lofted or swept, make them smaller, so they can turn corners without the self-intersection

You might want to post a screen cap of the input curves… that will help make more suggestions

Hi Pascal & schultzeworks,
thank you for your answer :slight_smile:

The aim is precisely to intersect this surface (for reasons of solidity and compactness)
Indeed, it had be more simple to build a surface which is not self-intersecting…but it’s not the shape i need.

I even tried to drape a surface over my *#-^_^@^`% !! surface, to make 2 shells ( one drape from top, one drape from bottom), but even with a small isocurve spacing, the result isn’t pretty, some details disappears.

I built it with 2 rails.
I tried with 4 rails too ( network) , but it wasn’t much better.
I’ve slightly modified the rails ( more rounded folds)…
Now, I try building 2 surfaces… pink and blue