I know when I put a light source inside that dragon before xmas, light leaked out of all the holes in the mesh, so I had to fix them. cap hole didn't do it. you had ago at that one didn't you?

took 15 mins but did a fine job this one TIG

any form of additive or subtractive rapid prototyping will require good clean meshes to work from, 3D printing is just one of many format used on a day to day basis.

in more generalised modeling if you ever intersect or bool two solids and then try to continue with more advanced manipulations (readily available to SU ruby users) then chances are at some stage you've had to manually repair the mesh, this tool does it for you.

I was doing test last night using it between bool operations on the standard SU shapes, and was surprised. A. how many little holes it found and B. how many holes the bool tool had left.

Rendering engines that have been developed for solids will perform much quicker on a manifold objects

So if you never use need to modify after intersecting two objects, and only ever upload to google earth or make sheet material products then this type of tool is probably not needed...

john

@jessejames said:

ps: Don't let the Gun and wanted poster fool you, i am a very easy going person

are you easy going enough to have a look at SuPy and see why SU7.1 won't load the python bundle

301 Moved Permanently

(www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz)

I don't know anything about scripting, I but need to use this hypocycloid.txt py script in SU,

I can't get SuPy to work and don't know ruby or python to convert it...

or anyone else have any ideas

john

EDIT: CRASHED OUT SU 20 seconds no crash report, and SU restarted on a new drawing, now that has [bnever happened before, and I mean everever SU doesn't restart....[/b]]

how odd, so I think I'll play some more

OK, am I following this a bit better now.

I got a Manifold dialog-box on the comp_fish when no repairs were needed and the new group is moved to one-side, [url]/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=25473&p=218811#p218811[/url]

on the other, after the repairs were done, all 3 two manifold bits stayed in place so I get the 6 meaning six manifold selection? and the box points just stay to one-side.

Sorry. shows up when I click on that repair, the first was there from the top, I'm sure....
EDIT: and it ungrouped separate geometry?

works on Mac

no Jade highlighting on second test, this model was coloured, 1st wasn't

hole repair goes from every other vert on torus?

messages

2 then
manifold, orienting faces then
6
no option dialogs, etc...(should there be?)

CadSpan Style shows up no reversed faces after, GOOD

I'll try more

Did you scale it up even more?

@tig said:

Here's v1.2 http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=218691#p218691
Still struggling with driven's monster...

More feedback and ideas please... :ugeek:

that's the simple version, so far it's taken 2hrs 14 min and 49seconds just to explode all the groups so I can then re-group to test the plug on it (and it's only 600,000+ poly's)

I just fired up the other computer so I'll do some simple tests on it, while I wait

@unknownuser said:

Very useful for boats builders

and don't forget the humble Air Bed makers of the world...

TIG,
I did this simply to save you having to draw-up or look for something relevant to test on

the last 3 letters in watertight might contain none planer points, one had to be over-drawn with a poly-line and two unsoftened with eraser on the bottoms, before I could JPP them, oh the bottom of that A I made a real hash of.. missed it out and went back... I was in a rush...

I made the ring quite well, two joints (triangulated) near you name, I chose a ragged font in an attempt to create tiny voids and was surprised how well it came out. Fredo's Joint PushPull is remarkably clean, I have another test piece on file that is pilfered with bad seams if that's more useful.

john

I'll give anything a spin, it's great that your on the case...

http://www.georgehart.com/rp/rp.html

You might try skinning one of the models on this site, well worth a visit in any case

john

fantastic,

go out on a family errand and come back to a whole new playing field, anything I can do to help?
a 'test' skp, if you need something more taxing,
or I'll try repairing it myself when you've got the next one up...
or need a tester... whatever you need...

about 25% of the poly count I would normally use for this sort of thing, and not triangulated.

john

Finally I the found a page I knew must exist,

whose ready to buy a desktop 3D metal printer? http://www.exone.com/eng/technology/x1-prometal/equipment_prometal.html

a bit of background how it works infohttp://www.bathsheba.com/sculpt/process/

and some mesh repair headers for a wishlist MeshRepair script (from a Mac only scientific mesh repairer/viewer)

’topeScope Mesh repair:
◦ Uniquify vertices
◦ Flip all faces
◦ Orient faces consistently
◦ Vertex cluster analysis
◦ Remove degenerate or duplicate faces

**#Mac users:**this actually a very good free viewer I forgot I had, the pay for version could be handy if you do a lot of file conversion involving point clouds and DXF
’topeScope Base features:
• Read stl, dxf gts, nff, q3o, obj, off, ply, tri, uo
• Mesh coloring
• Copy image to clipboard
• Print image
'topeScope Plus additions:
Write stl,dxf, obj, ply, uo
Mesh information
Mesh morphing
Merge models
http://www.ripplon.com/topeScope/index.html

Jeff,

I like to see my menu meters, especially when using SU

have you had a look at trampoline, I mentioned above, I think you'll like it and some of the other tool from old jewel, dock lock, painters picker

john

@cmoreink said:

I give up, it's a no go
I also installed EEbR v2.4 but no show

Hi, one ? and one suggestion

have you installed the full new combo set, if not do that first

so that makes this the second suggestion, download TIGs demo skp (on top of one of these threads) and try out all his curves. If you use step back rather then delete, you get a fresh set of rails each try.

good luck

@tig said:

I have a proto-watertightness_tester script growing in my head...
Please correct me if I'm wrong on any aspect or miss anything out...
Q: Will this mesh be a group ? It would make the testing easier to limit the entities set whilst ensuring all entities are tested...

##Grouping is easy, and needed by most the advanced rubies anyway... a 'not group/component' prompt wouldn't hurt. on script missing that I think "what's wrong now"

The object's mesh must be only one 'surface' without 'holes' of any sort.
The mesh must be 'manifold' - i.e. it wraps round on itself to form a complete skin without perforations.

##I actually think it's 2 manifold that's required i.e. inner and outer face, because checking and orientating normals is all part of the prep,,, (I'll check my reference)

All edges in the mesh must have two faces - edge.faces.length==2 - no more, no less.
The mesh cannot have any loose 'flaps' - i.e. single faces, not edge.faces.length==1
The object cannot have any edges with no faces - not edge.faces.length==0
The object cannot contain internal faces - this can be found by edge.faces.length > 2 - but the finding of which face is which gets a bit convoluted..33.
##no internal faces, but I pretty sure back faces are needed

We copy the group and we edit that as needed...
We look at the group's entities and take the first face we find##actually selecting a known GOOD face as a kick off is not a problem (Fredo's jointPP, etc...) and get its all_connected - if this list isn't equal in length to the group's entities list then we erase the difference [keeping a record of its details for use later] and continue to look at what's left...
We look at all remaining edges and if we get a fail and we eraseor just highlight, with an except changes option, maybe this 'incorrect' edge [we make a running list of these with their vertex-points and faces as appropriate, for use later] - except those edges sharing multiple faces which are dealt with differently - see below...
Next we test progressive horizontal slices through the manifold - IF any edge.faces.length > 2.
We can start the first slice at the max end position found for any edges that failed - this will speed up the testing.
If these slices have any sub-dividing edges - edges.faces !=1 - then they're made by slicing through an inner face. Therefore we take the center-point on any sub-dividing edge and test for that on a face in the manifold faces. If it's a hit we erase that face [we make a running list of the face's edges, vertex-points and face as appropriate, for use later].
We continue with these 'slice' tests [c/c ? as the max height of the 3D-print is ~400mm [?] then we take the slices at the minimum part size of 0.5mm or 800 number proportioned to the groups real height BUT as we jump don when a face goes this should be far fewer] - we repeat the slicing until there are no internal faces left - to avoid excessive slicing we'll re-test the groups edges after each tidy up and only carry on slicing IF edge.faces.length>2 - i.e. there are still some internal faces AND jump down to that edge...I'm not sure if a slice test is required at all, unless you incorporate a volume calc, If I was doing it manually and I knew the all external edges had a maximum of two connected faces, that implies any internal geometry is free floating, so I would do a select all then de-select the external shell, group any remaining and look at it separately, then attach or delete

Next we have a 'dialog' Y/N - to erase all non-coplanar edges to simplify the manifold mesh; unless it has to be triangulated in which case we'll erase all non-coplanar then [re]triangulate any faces that aren't ?the export file needs to be triangulated, either as a skp or on export by SU, personally I'd rather work with the triangles and move points about [That reminds, is there a PointsSlide Ruby??]

%(#000000)[If there were no changes made then the the copied group is erased.
However, if there were changes then the copied group with it's deletions/changes is move to the side of the original group and another group is made to the side of that containing a duplicate of the changed edges/faces for your information [these might be colored red?]]
A report popup tells you what has been changed...I Like your Alice Blue on another Layer myself

This wouldn't be toooo difficult to code - any takers or anything else to consider ?
Haven't written a line of code yet - just the synopsis. 8-)

:ugeek:

@tfdesign said:

I hope that helps

it all helps,
Tim, from SharkFX gave me a fully working demo key so I could transfer a job to ProE on the last Beta release, so yes, very friendly and helpful, but I use SU as a thinking tool as much as drawing tool and I can't seem to do that with Shark or other Mac/CAD software even C4D which I have access to.

I think: I'll just try this or that with an idea and by the time I figure out how to draw it I've forgotten the idea, sketchup lets be inaccurate but quick while designing and then pull it all back when I've made up your mind, usually it's for mesh reduction, I like 128 segment circle and 8 sided bezier corners... I hate steps I don't want.

The only reasons I look outside of SU is rendering, mesh repair(for 3D printing) and file transfer, so'll I'll give Cheetah a go before deciding to buy.

BTW what import format was ungrouping SU, I tested a .STL export yesterday and had grouped meshes?

john

so it is a Mac thing, but quite harmless it seems, and I already asked TIG if it was a new tool pending (sorry no), I also stripped out all my rubies and then did a clean-instal of SU just to see if it would go-away, all to no avail. So I'm quite please it can be replicated... sort of.

I'll try the vertical tip from Jeff and then forget all about.

john

TIG,
definitely a taker here, or is that defiantly...

I'll go though your outline after dinner, first thoughts... fantastic

couple of things, bed dimensions are in the API PDF I posted above, there are others, but that covers most.

keep in mind however, I for one use meter's at 4 decimal places with units turned off and treat it as mm until final export, even then I'll scale up by 10 or 20 for detailed bits when editing.

some of the printers have build heights of .001mm for wax

are you highlight or repair, I think highlight all errors in one step, then let me fix them is what I'm after, but I'm not sure... may auto healing...

john