Now that it has been explained how to and how easy it is to wrap text around a arc or circle with OneCNCxp it brings me to another?.

While the "Model>Operations>Difference" function seems to complete when using it on text that is turned into a solid I cannot seem to get it to remove this text from the surrounding material so that it appears that the text shape is only a hole it still appears to be a surface when rendering. The text was extruded the thickness of the plate also verifying that it is a solid.

any ideas?

Thanks
Ken

"Resident oneCNC idiot"

Ken,

The trick here is to make sure that:

1) you only have one copy of each solid
2) Only select two solids at one time to difference
3) select the solid you want to keep first and the "cutter" second.

So here we go. If you have a large square solid and your extruded surfaces (letters) then you would make sure nothing is selected to start with. Next click on the operations button, and then the difference button. Then move you curser around until the large square turns RED , and left click.
If you will notice, before you left click, at the bottom of the screen in the info box it says "select the object you want to modify". That's the large square.
Then it will say"select the object you want to remove". This will be the individual extruded letters. So select one of them. One is probably already RED , but you can select any of them. Then left click and it will remove it from the large square. Leaving a gapping hole. JK

Before going to the next one, do a render to see your handy work. Here is were you puff your chest out and think "man am I good" do a little dance, call everybody in to see how smart you are, ect...

Then come back to earth and remove the rest of the letters.:rolleyes:


And please change your sig as no one here is an Idiot.

Cool! You know, I have never used the difference function yet. I've been stuck on "Solid cutter", but now I think I realize that Solid cutter may often take more "cleanup time" than using the difference function, since I do have to go and delete the cutter afterwards.

Have I missed any other nuances of the best time and place to use one or the other?

Ward I have done that 30 times and it will not work although when I created a new drawing similar to yours it worked fine. I have saved the drawings like you mentioned some time back so tomorrow when my old brain is fresher I will back up a few versions and maybe see what is going wrong.

Thanks much
Ken

Hu I can say this, the Difference is very useful when you want to say put a shaft bore through stock, a keyway, valley or just holes as well as many other things.

Ken

Ken,
E-mail me the file and I'll see if I can spot the problem.

HU,
I use the difference function more than the solid cutter.

The difference is best when you have one solid you want to remove from another.

The solid cutter works good when you want to trim a solid with just a surface.

I've gotten in the habit of building everything out of solids.
Because it is so easy to do in Onecnc. But sometimes you have to use a surface.

Ward, so you're saying that a "solid cutter" does not have to be a solid, but could merely be a single surface used to cut another solid? I was labouring under the impression that the cutter has to be a solid ( I read the help :D)

I just tried it, and indeed a surface will cut a solid. Well, I'll be! The "helptease" never told me that!

Hu,

Maybe we should all get together several times a year, say in the Tropics, to have a Onecnc convention. We could swap war stories and tips. Have a few cool ones and look over the native scenery.

That sounds like a "machinist's convention", a totally tax deductible expense! Yup, we've got to go somewhere warm and sunny to get trained in this stuff, that's for sure.

Look how happy that makes my banana! :D

:banana:

Ken,
You had two copies of the letters. So when you extrude the surface, it extrudes one, not the other. Then when you difference the letters from the plate, it actually does it but because there were two surfaces, the secound one "covers the opening so it looks like it didn't work. (sorry I should have put some periods in that but it's late):D

I'm e-mailing you back the file with the duplicate surfaces removed.

Maybe tomorrow Ward (well I guess actually it is today!) how did you determine I had the two surfaces?

It worked out exactly as you said it would now.

Thanks
Ken

Originally posted by Ken_Shea
Maybe tomorrow Ward (well I guess actually it is today!) how did you determine I had the two surfaces?


Hi Ken,
just mark one letter and click on 'invisible'. If there is still a letter, there were two in the beginning. :)

One of the most frequently 'mistake' in CAD is, to have double entities. Some CAD-Progs have a special 'Cleanup-function' for that. But I never saw a really good help from that.

The lesson for today: whenever you are in trouble with a CAD-model, look for double entities, because you can never be sure, what entity you are clicking on. :)

That seems to work for me as well Kingkong, although not real sure how I got the two surfaces, possibly in my effort to extrude them I applied the surface function twice and never realized it.

Thanks
Ken

Yes, duplicate entities in any CAD program should be outlawed, if they are exact duplicates. It would be great if a warning box popped up when the thing is created, at least forcing you to change the color, or some means to differentiate between them (for those odd circumstances where you might actually want a duplicate, although I can't think of a single instance :) )

How hard could it be to search an array for a duplicate?

Originally posted by HuFlungDung
Yes, duplicate entities in any CAD program should be outlawed, if they are exact duplicates.

Hi Hu,
not really. Think about assembly-drawings with i.e. a shaft and some wheel on it. There a lot of entities exact on the same place and with ths same length and so on. If you are not a good friend of layers, you are in trouble... :(

I'm doubtful, but I can see your point. By exact duplicate I would mean same coordinates, same color, same layer. If those all match, then they could make it issue warning. Most likely, you will want to change one of those parameters.

Guys,
I forgot to mention that you can also use the differance function on just surfaces.

Say you have a flat surface, either drawn or disconnected from a solid, and you want to remove a hole from the surface.

Draw a circlular surface on the flat surface. Then use the differance funtion, pick the flat surface first. Then the circular one and it will put a hole in your flat surface.

Differance works on both solids and surfaces. Just wanted to make that clear.;)


And union will do the opposite. It will replace a hole in a surface.

So just extract the hole edge and the put a point at arc center.
Create a circular surface, ( the size of the hole) at that point. Use end point. Then pick the flat surface and the circular surface. Then select the union function and it will combine them and heal the surface.
By that I mean it will make one surface with no sign of the circular surface.
This works for surface to surface stuff.

Good to know, Ward. It's hard for us newbies to know what works and what doesn't, in fact, sometimes I get the notion from a past failure, that something is not possible, when in fact it is. Understandably, a person never tries it that way again, until someone, like you, informs us that indeed it is possible to do it.

Keep on tipping, we need it :)

I wish OneCNC would have published a more informative manual. Or is it just me?

Don't get me wrong. I think the software is first rate, but there is so much the software can do, but the manual doesn't really cover it, or cover it in detail. Definitions of terms/functions would be nice for a 3D newbie such as me.

How would I even KNOW to use the Difference function, unless I already KNEW what it was??? Or even that it existed at all?

HU, "HelpTEASE" is right on the money. I am pretty new to 3D, surfaces, solids, etc. so I could really use a manual that explains every aspect of the software I paid for, so that I can hopefully maximize my use of it.

I don't know about you, but I really don't have a lot of time to go through each and every item in the online Help file. That is extremely tedious.

Good thing OneCNC has top notch support (Thank you, Mike Reyes) and we all are fortunate to have WMS, HU, and several other contributors to this forum.

Sorry if I sounded a bit grouchy. I'm not, really! I LOVE this software! Such a GREAT software needs an equally GREAT manual!

You all have a good weekend.

Happy Birthday, America.

Mark Linder

What you say is true, Mark.

Formal training is available, I think, but most of us insist on learning to drive "on the CAM freeway", but we all get on at different times :)

In the long run, I think we all learn many of the intricacies of our professions by hanging around others, learning the lingo, one chunk at a time. One thing about learning on the job is that when you gain a new nugget of information, you know exactly where to catalogue it.

I'm sure that what we talk about on here is providing valuable feedback to the crew at Onecnc, because it becomes obvious just what the users don't seem to pick up on right away.

So let's not have anyone holding back. Fire out more of your specific questions and let them know about what you don't know so the issues can be addressed in future updates to the "helptease".

:) hi mark
when learning onecnc its best to learn the basics as the manual
allows you to, then when the basic's as gone in the concepts become easier, then we start experimenting with the software
knowing when we try something if it fails we revert back to basics
if that fails we then hit the forum with some very capable guys on there who dedicate a lot of there time and effert into coming up with the solution or solution's, tips and tricks and support may already have the solution or the method on the forum.
its what we call the learning curve
because everybody's different in to how much is taken in,
you delevlope your skills as you go along specially in 3d modelling
its a whole new world at this level but you can learn it as you go a long,developing your skills and understanding over a period of time
best regards
peter