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3D Printing Using Anim8or
2020 Hindsight:
--- Quote from: davdud101 on September 14, 2021, 07:10:27 pm ---...
Also Anim8or isn't the most dead-nuts precise tool out there so just be aware of that. I like it for rough dimensions and it can definitely work for less intricate stuff, but for things like boolean operations and extremely precise operations it's a bit tough to get clean results that would be useful on something like a 3d printer or CNC router.
--- End quote ---
The other week I wanted to print a simple roller. I created the .stl with Anim8or using the boolean operations script. My first attempt failed, because I tried to subtract one cylinder from a wider one, but made the "mistake" of having them both the same length. When I made the small diameter cylinder poke out both ends of the large diameter cylinder it worked. (Although the choice of how to divide the ends up into triangles was a bit eccentric.)
ENSONIQ5:
A simple roller solid can be created in Anim8or without booleans by lathing a rectangle. The object is limited to 32 facets around the circumference but this can be improved with smoothing and the topology of the ends is tidy.
2020 Hindsight:
--- Quote from: ENSONIQ5 on September 15, 2021, 08:45:29 am ---A simple roller solid can be created in Anim8or without booleans by lathing a rectangle. The object is limited to 32 facets around the circumference but this can be improved with smoothing and the topology of the ends is tidy.
--- End quote ---
Would smoothing have a toasted cheese effect on the precision of the corners? The end caps the binary operation produced fit perfectly (once I made the inner cylinder longer) - the surface just isn't divided like I would have done it by hand - but I shouldn't care about that.
Old Codger:
--- Quote from: ENSONIQ5 on September 15, 2021, 08:45:29 am ---A simple roller solid can be created in Anim8or without booleans by lathing a rectangle. The object is limited to 32 facets around the circumference but this can be improved with smoothing and the topology of the ends is tidy.
--- End quote ---
If I were going to create something round with a round hole in the middle lathing would seem to be the way to go to me. I use lathing so much these days I have my own name for it. I call it "spinning" the shape.
But wouldn't smoothing screw up the end caps?
Have to try that out and see what happens.
Old Codger:
--- Quote from: ENSONIQ5 on September 15, 2021, 08:45:29 am ---A simple roller solid can be created in Anim8or without booleans by lathing a rectangle. The object is limited to 32 facets around the circumference but this can be improved with smoothing and the topology of the ends is tidy.
--- End quote ---
While the topology of the ends does stay tidy, my experiments would tend to indicate that you don't actually get more than 32 segments in your circle.
Here's what I did:
1. Generated a square spline offset from zero and lathed it in y for 32 segments.
2. Then I smoothed it with a tension of 1. (By inspection I determined that tension much than 1 starts messing with the topology of the ends) This produced something with what looked like 64 sections around but it also double to geometry across the radius and across the outside.
3. Then I smoothed a 2nd time again with tension of 1.
At first glance it looked like I had a wheel with 128 segments. But then I looked closer. What I discovered was that my original 32 facets radially were preserved but were merely broken up into (now) 4 segments each. I've attached a couple of graphics to illustrate. The first one is a render zoomed in to show a quarter of the circumference. The 2nd is a screen cap of the same model in the same amount of zoom but in wire frame mode. You can see the original 8 segments (per quarter turn) as were there after lathing. Look at it and tell me what you think. Did I mess up?
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