Use of SetPt in FilletSrf to a point how?

[Steve1]

Hi, V5
I have got as far as this fillet, having exploded my booleaned object, and using NON DEFAULT SETTINGS…first secret of success note !!! of extend =no and trim =no, I dont have a BlendType=circular fillet option as was the third suggested setting that I can see in V5. (Jim)

I have the last fillet upwards to do. Jim says use SetPt.

This would be useful for folk to know how to do, so a new thread on this mystery of filleting !

…so I try entering SetPt after command asks for second pick, and nothing happens.

I google use of SetPt with FilletSrf and find nothing.

I google fillet to a point and find nothing.

My helpfile with the mini videos shows an error warning when I play one. I see nothing in it for SetPt.

How does one filletSrf to a point ?

In my example making a 0.08inch filletSrf, locking each fillet as I progressed as suggested, which two surfaces does one pick next and then after that ?

Fillet 0pnt08 to here OK_.3dm (891.6 KB)

Must solve this FilletSrf thing, no videos posted by anyone in thread asking for such.

Had to hand over this job a week ago but cannot without solving fillets. seeing them in my nightmares !

Cheers

Steve

[Tom_P]

the workflow is described here:
https://wiki.mcneel.com/rhino/tancylinders

[Steve1]

Hi, OMG,
all that just to go to that point ?
I just dont have time to get into something that deep.

Thats days learning there.

if only the command had a point option.

Jim made it sound so easy with SetPt as if it was an option in the command , rather than one step in many.

Well thanks for that, I will place that link in my thread on videos for FilletSrf, though its hard to see images, unless the screen will go bigger.

Cheat somehow then study that when I have time.

Steve

[jim]

@Steve1

OMG,
all that just to go to that point ?
I just dont have time to get into something that deep.

HA Ha Ha… I agree that’s really awfully convoluted for a very simple operation.

What that illustrates, once again, the stupidity of the process of boolean things together and then trying to make fillets from the resulting edges. That process might or might not work in other Cad programs but in Rhino its just a huge time waster if you are trying to model mechanical objects that are anything slightly more complex than a box. For instance, these 2 cylinders in the wiki article.

This file:
pointy_fillet.3dm (177.1 KB)
shows how simple it is if you just leave the 2 cylinders as separate entities and connect them with fillets.

Notice I made the lower 1mm fillet as a revolve (a torus). Doing that fillet as a torus is slightly more accurate than making it with FilletSrf and as a result Rhino’s FilletSrf makes the pointy fillet (between the cylinder and torus) correctly so you don’t have to fix the pointy end of the fillet.

So back to your question about the pointy fillet in this picture:

Rhino has a bug that has been persistently ignored by McNeel for all of Rhino’s 25 years, despite repeated requests by users to address this bug.
The bug is that FilletSrf often will make the pointy end of a fillet incorrectly.
As is often the case with longstanding bugs, McNeel expects the users to be much smarter than the developers. The users are expected to know how to fix these bugs but the developers are allowed to perpetually remain clueless.

So what the user has to do after making a pointy fillet like this one is turn on control points, zoom in and use SetPt to set the last row control points to the intersection of the edges of the 2 surfaces the user is filleting. If you don’t do that repair to the end of the fillet then trimming and joining will more than likely fail.

[Steve1]

Hi Jim, I just want to know the last few steps to go from where I got to ,

Fillet 0pnt08 to here OK_.3dm (891.6 KB)

using your method, and thank you, I have learned something, turn off default settings, use lock command and explode any boolean unions, and I get this,

and havent a clue what few steps are required to get the last fillet to go to that point, even before I need to use SetPt to then move a control point of the result.

Any chance of a video ?

Anyone ? surely there is someone proficient in this fillet to this point.

As McNeel reckon its dead easy and there are no bugs, someone from McNeel then to prove it ?

or a few screen captures ?

I must hand this over 2 weeks late and I am stuck on this one fillet !

We users need to see links to vids showing how to use FilletSrf, and there are none.

That McNeel also have not fixed that bug let alone made a vid of filleting a shape like mine, and tackling a point, after all this time, is baffling.

Steve

[Tom_P]

what s the radii you need at the the marked edges ?

[Steve1]

Hi,
V5,
here is the reality.

as long as it looks acceptable.

I have applied Jims fillets across to my entire object, and realise there is a triangle at that corner to fill,
as to how best to deal with that area, My triangle might do., if it was at the outer face but it isnt, oh dear…, , the fillet needs to run also along that edge towards us.

The rads are 0.08 in that area, and 0.035 on the outer edge. and 0.05 as shown here.

I should have also made some 0.08 dots to create that other rad. now added to this image.

I have just had a go at filleting that extra edge, but Jims is a neat speherical section and mine not.

and then I move on to filleting the outer edge, and have to recreate the soft area where a 0.1 rad joins a 0.05.
so create this, but then wish to blend the edges more, get my CAD metal file out and do some rubbing down !
and there is a 0.035 inch short edge to fillet but it has me stumped there.

What is best way here ?

Also yet again a fillet to a point, shown in yellow on pic, what simple way of doing so.

Someone might do a vid for me and others, what a simple starter, take that linear fillet to a point in its last few steps.
Here is my rhino file so far. V5 by the way.
Fillet 0pnt08 not rounded as Jims.3dm (2.8 MB)

Steve

[AlW]

This is a perfect example of the misuse of CAD. Who in the world has the audacity (besides Steve) to use CAD to design a part according to the methods of the machinists and pattern makers who have been doing it for centuries instead of designing them according to the few and limited methods provided by unimaginative (and in some cases, lazy) developers of CAD tools?

In all seriousness, though, some of the features you are trying to duplicate are literally the result of a subtle flick of the wrist or a judiciously modulated fingertip by a true artisan who knows what an aesthetically pleasing part should look like. Also a part that flows well when cast and cools without cracking or distorting.

The reason I used the word unimaginative is because for a filleting tool to be as universally useful as a fingertip it is first necessary for the developer to imagine all the cases and situations where it might be used and then code the analysis, case classification and finally the solution. And lazy because it can’t be whipped out in a few hours on a Friday afternoon and it’s daunting to even contemplate doing it.

I think it would be worth a lot of developer time though, because of all the designer hours trying and failing to get the right result that would be saved among the thousands of users who forge ahead with high hopes only to learn the hard way that there is no easy way with the present mediocre state of the art in CAD capability.

BTW, @Steve1. very nice photography and markup. Some of the best I’ve seen here.

[jim]

@Steve1

I have learned something, turn off default settings, use lock command and explode any boolean unions

---

I don’t know where you think learned that but what I have said is that all Booleans are a huge waste of time for modeling the kind of objects you are modeling in Rhino.

Booleans are a waste of time:

1. If you even think about using a Boolean you have already wasted time.

2. If you add surfaces to your model that will never be used on the final version just because you think those extra surfaces are necessary to make the boolean work you have already wasted time.

3. If you chop parts of your model up into pieces just so you can boolean the pieces back together again you must know that’s got to be a huge waste of time.

4. If you do booleans just so you get edges that can be filleted and then the FilletEdge almost always fail you must have by now figured out that workflow is a huge waste of time.

On the list above #1 is the most important. I have been reverse engineering castings and other mechanical parts for 40 years and using Rhino to do it for more than 25 years. 20 years ago I decided to try to do that without even thinking about using booleans and could not believe how much that decision increased my productivity.

[jim]

@AlW

This is a perfect example of the misuse of CAD. Who in the world has the audacity (besides Steve) to use CAD to design a part according to the methods of the machinists and pattern makers who have been doing it for centuries instead of designing them according to the few and limited methods provided by unimaginative (and in some cases, lazy) developers of CAD tools?

Well said.
However, this might surprise you. Rhino is one of the few CAD programs that is actually well equipped to duplicate what pattern makers have been doing for eons.

@Steve1

What is best way here ?
Also yet again a fillet to a point, shown in yellow on pic, what simple way of doing so.

Here is what I would do with that corner.
corner.3dm (1.4 MB)

Nothing but Filletsrf and trim used.

Oh and here is a vid on how to make fillets…

[Tom_P]

@jim

Oh and here is a vid on how to make fillets…

great thanks for sharing.

[Steve1]

@AlW

Who in the world has the audacity (besides Steve) to use CAD to design a part according to the methods of the machinists and pattern makers who have been doing it for centuries

Hi,
I just need to create this item in CAD so that it can be recreated from solid steel.

or should I look at this item and say getting near to its fillets is beyond CAD.
Am I asking to do the impossible to filletSrf it ?

I have it accurate prior fillets.

What should I have instead done with it ?

It doesnt need to be a perfect replica, though the mounting holes and locations of them in this item on the main object must be accurate, however it does have fillets and I need to have it something like the original, but as I have said, the original may have been done by hand and CAD (as you say) cant match the nuances of a twist of the wrist etc.

Surely though the edges can be given a fillet ? Is Rhino not capable of such ?

Not sure why I am ‘having the audacity’ to expect some fillets.

Jim achieved them.

However all I want to do, and surely this is within CAD territory, is know how to do a fillet taper, and I am not getting any step by step or video showing what surely is a simple operation if fillet to a point. and its all I wanted, to see it being done, in a video or step by step screen grab.

Surely someone has done such so we can follow it ?

The link that was posted by Tom is complex for what was hoped to be simple, and involves booleans which Jim rightly says is entering dangerous territory., and Jim says there are simpler ways.

When I say I learnt, thanks to Jim, to turn off defaults and explode booleans, I am saying if its already Booleaned, then explode, but best dont even boolean it before getting to fillet it. avoid boolean.

But could someone please please please show me how one does a fillet to a point as a video or screen gran step by step.?

take my model and do that yellow arrowed fillet for example.

I just want to see how its done. Thanks for the large lecture on CAD and original filleting and the guy with his wood.

But I am still needing a vid on Rhino fillet to a point or screen grab steps.
pleeeeeese someone , after trying to find out for a week now, how is a fillet to a point on my simple example done ? without an hour needed on what one would hope is a minute or twos reading and doing.

do the yellow arrow fillet.

How is this done please, easily, on a non booleaned item, file attached here…anyone ?
Fillets progressed.3dm (1.3 MB)

Steve

[Steve1]

@jim

Nothing but Filletsrf and trim used.

Hi Jim,
Thanks, I see its possible,

however I need to see the steps used, for A , B , C and D.
Its what I want but how to get to it, I cant see given what I had, how then to continue with FilletSrf and trim, to see what each little stage was as you did it, is vital to knowing how you got there.
Are you able to do a screen capture video, or hit print screen and paste into Photoshop each pick and command, and then extend canvas downwards and drag the layers into order ?

did you start with my fillets and then continue or did you nuke them and do it instead with filletSrf and what were the clicks made, then the trims ?

I truly need to see the steps taken.

and I ask again, how to get Jims spherical nature filletSrf at that corner and get another FilletSrf to the edge ?

Steve

[Steve1]

Hi, Not able to let this drag on as deadline 2 weeks ago, I have done a fillet to point by slicing my fillet and drawing a curve start tangent, on one face, then copy it to other face (3D rotate) , trim it up and sweep2 with curves as rails and edge of fillet as profile. joint to rest of fillet and trim blue away, …does the job !

Then to get Jims lovely corner pink fillet to get to edge, used moveface. Check with intersect all is good, it is,

if floundering…cheat !

corner by Jim developed both sides by me and corner given Moveface.3dm (2.9 MB)

Steve

[jim]

@Steve1

When I say I learnt, thanks to Jim, to turn off defaults and explode booleans, I am saying if its already Booleaned, then explode

I’m fairly confident you haven’t learned anything from me. So please do not give me credit for your misguided beliefs
What I advised you to do is to not even think about booleans. If you learn that you might make progress.

If something is already messed up by a boolean, often it is faster and easier to start over and not even think about booleans. That was what I was trying to demonstrate with filleting the 2 cylinders pointy_fillet.3dm (177.1 KB)

[lander (CAD CAM CNC)]

@Steve1

all that just to go to that point ?
I just dont have time to get into something that deep.

Thats days learning there.

if only the command had a point option.

Jim made it sound so easy with SetPt as if it was an option in the command , rather than one step in many.

I was going to say, I’m not familiar with such an option. I believe it’s just a basic emergent propery of certain geometric circumstances.

@jim

once again, the stupidity of the process of boolean things together and then trying to make fillets from the resulting edges.

I agree. Booleans have to be setup very cleanly other wise it can make a mess.

@Steve1

Any chance of a video ?

Anyone ? surely there is someone proficient in this fillet to this point.

As McNeel reckon its dead easy and there are no bugs, someone from McNeel then to prove it ?

or a few screen captures ?

The hard part is knowing your design intent and making a video that correlates, etc.

@Steve1

here is the reality.

Another option is to take more of these really nice photos and use photogrammetry to create a 3D model to reference for the design intent. This photo is very high detail imo They would have to be trimmed and stitched of course, but just another workflow worth considering. The more perspectives the better.

@jim

I have been reverse engineering castings and other mechanical parts for 40 years and using Rhino to do it for more than 25 years. 20 years ago I decided to try to do that without even thinking about using booleans and could not believe how much that decision increased my productivity.

I’ve honestly been trying hard to add them to my techniques cause I’ve not really become accustomed to it, but now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t Booleans have always been awkward for me, I should probably stop using them

This thread is intense

@Steve1

I have done a fillet to point by slicing my fillet and drawing a curve start tangent, on one face, then copy it to other face (3D rotate) , trim it up and sweep2 with curves as rails and edge of fillet as profile. joint to rest of fillet and trim blue away, …does the job !

nice!

@Steve1

if floundering…cheat !

whatever works

@jim

If something is already messed up by a boolean, often it is faster and easier to start over and not even think about booleans.

I’m like this close to never using booleans ever again

[AlW]

@lander

I’m like this close to never using booleans ever again

Let’s not get carried away! Booleans are very handy and time saving if used for what they’re good at. Of course knowing what they’re no good at (like Jim does) is an important part of staying out of trouble and not wasting time.

The command that I find delightful is Solid->boolean two objects. Almost entertaining to use.