split question in Rhino

[turmite]

Hey guys,

I found something that I though would work but doesn't. I created some text on the cplane then created a flat surface border. I wanted to use the text to split the surface so I could get the border as curves and use it as a quick toolpath for Madcam. The text is comic sans ms with bold all cap letters. How can I split the surface with this text without having to build the letters individually. I was going to go the newsgroup but it is down again. Seems like it is down every weekend now!

Mike

[HuFlungDung]

Mike,
I'm not sure what you mean by split the surface, but did you vectorize the text, after which you can manipulate it as 2d geometry or perhaps create surfaces from the chains?

[turmite]

Hi Hu,
No did not vectorize. I have seen an example on the Rhino newsgroup but as I said I can't get on there. I don't Rhino has a vectorize function for it's text. I go read the help files and look. Never though of that. Thanks.

Mike

[DAB_Design]

Mike,
I have never had much luck with fonts in Rhino. Some work, and some don't. If you zoom in real small on the lines created, are they smooth and all connected? The problem I have seen is that some fonts will create small jagged lines(and some of the small lines may not be connected). When zoomed out a ways they look fine, but when you zoom in they are pretty messy. Depending on how many letters you are doing, it may not be too hard to clean it up.

BYW, you know what to do if you need further help.

[turmite]

Thanks Dustin. I have since went back and looked at project on to the surface.....can't find anything except project on cplane and the text is already on the cplane. I looked for vectorize like Hu suggested and I'm pretty sure that is not in Rhino. This is a solid letter font rather than lines.....unless it is made up of millions of little lines!

I'm hoping the newsgroup is back on line tomorrow. I'll keep pluggin at it and maybe I can come up with something.

Mike

ps....if not....I do know what to do!

[Dan B]

Hi Mike,

Very interesting. I can't get the solid letters to trim or split either. Of course, an easy work around is to do an intersection between the letters and the surface, then split or trim to the intersection curves.

You can split the surface to text in V4.

Dan

[DAB_Design]

Mike, 'project' may not be in the menu but it is a command. Just type project into the command line area then it should promt you through the rest.

[turmite]

Hi Dan, Dustin,

James Carruthers (I hope I spelled his name correctly) gave me the answer over on the newsgroup. TextObj allows you to use the fonts but make them solids with dimensions. Cool! I had the surface split and cleaned in 2 minutes. Dan, this feature is in v3 too, just to address your idea of using v4 to do this.

I can see this will be a very quick way to create raised block letter signs in a hurry.

Mike

ps thanks for the help guys.

[Dan B]

Hi Mike,

I assumed that you were using the TextObject command. For some reason, I couldn't split it in V3, but could in V4.

I'll look into it more. I was a little distracted yesterday when I was testing this, as we had a huge hail storm, and my mind was on my new car getting dented with hail (which it did)

Edited to add: Yes, it works in V3 as well. I don't know what I was trying yesterday, but it works well today.

Dan

[turmite]

Hey Dan sorry about the car. I live in the southern US now and we get small hail about twice a yr with the big stuff about once every two years. I lived a year in Rapid City SD and I have never seen hail like I saw there. I have seen it 18" deep on the interstate, and saw an aluminum camper shell on a small pickup that looked it had been shot through and through. You could see the intrance holes and the exit holes!

Thanks for the help on the help issue.

Mike

[Dan B]

Where I'm at, we see golf ball size hail once every 10 years. Unfortunately, yesterday was one of those days. I was going to bring my old truck to work yesterday, but changed my mind at the last minute. The car would have been in the garage. Oh well.

Dan