Thicking A Mesh

[thompsonrl]

hi all

im just wondering how to
thicken a mesh using maya.

using other software like top mod similar action is
called crusting

is anything like that available in maya

thanks for your replies

cheers

[thanasis_scifi]

Usually you can do an Extrude on the surface you want to thicken, but it really depends on the geometry that you have.

Sometimes, a simple extrude wont work as expected cause the surface will have sharp angles, and because the extrude is using the normals it will produce some weird results.

If you dont want to produce something that is double sided, or a physical representation of a real panel, but only care to create panels that only look thick, you can extrude the border edges
of your object. Same complications exist regarding normals / extrude direction, but for most cases extrude edge works nicely and requires minor tweaking.

You have to play around with the extrude tool to get the hang of it.

[thompsonrl]

thanks for your reply thanasis
my models are mainly arch models
for 3d printing
and the printer needs specific thickness
thats why im boggled i will try that
and any other suggestion u might have.

really appreciate your help

regards.

[thanasis_scifi]

Other packages have specific command for what you need, but maya doesn't unfortunately. In modo for instance, you can set the thickness in "real world" units you want so you get exactly the same thickness on different parts.

In Maya, when you tweak the extrude attributes in the channel box, the values you see are in centimeters, if you have the default settings.

What you can do to save you the hassle of tweaking the attributes ( the local Z translate in particular ) is to use this line and put it as a button in your shelf,

polyExtrudeFacet -kft 1 -ltz 1 ; // in the -ltz flag (local translate Z axis ) you can set the extrusion height in centimeters, in my case 1 cm.

One thing to be careful of is to remember to freeze transforms in the object before you do the extrude to make sure you get exactly the distance you dialed in.

Have you tried to find a script that maybe does this thickening?

If you need it for arch models and 3D printing things get a bit more complicated. In what format do you export? Don't you use nurbs to go to STL format?

I think applications like Rhino are better at preparing a model for 3D printing. You can do it in maya too but it is a bit of a hassle.

My view is that the thickening of polys will never be fully automated and perfectly done by just one command cause sometimes you have geometry issues with angles in surfaces that you just have to go in and tweak manually.

[joojaa]

QUOTE(thanasis @ 12/31/07, 04:32 PM) [snapback]278951[/snapback]
Other packages have specific command for what you need, but maya doesn't unfortunately. In modo for instance, you can set the thickness in "real world" units you want so you get exactly the same thickness on different parts.

Yet its still a fake, the surface in questions control points are thiked out, however this does not represent the real limits or the apparent ticking right because its not measurable in the way you think.

In fact any claims of this sort of precision on polygons is dismissable with one hand, however for a subd limit it is possible. However due to topography not really useful in the way one thinks.

Anway doing this very close on contol point level isnt hard as long as the individual polygons dont cross in the process. However when they do its another matter, and again its not accurate in terms of what is since polygon does not represent reality.

PS: claiming anything about units in software that arent cads is a bit questionable. Just like a pixel doesn't have a 1 to 1 correlation in print the vectors of 3d have same feature theres some physical conversion going on in between anyway, and it THAT and only that that decides anything about any relation.

PPS. coders are very good at pushing half corectness like this, just because you ask someone to make the world like you THINK it wourks doesn't make the HOW it works any different.

[thanasis_scifi]

Of course maya is DCC and not CAD, so there is no "exact" measurement. I was refering to "exact" in terms of what's going on inside the software. To be more specific what I meant was to be certain that maya would extrude the polys at a given thickness that would be consistent between each part in "maya centimeters". Now if you get fumbled up results when the 3D printer converts "Maya centimeters" to "real centimeters" what can I say, depends on the accuracy you want.

And I do suggest a CAD software if someone wants to do an accurate 3D print. But I believe there are some stuff that you need for print that don't need to be extremely accurate, like a toy, model or figure part. Trying to to a 3D print of an engine part (or any part from a mechanical device ) in maya would be impossible.

Yes polys dont represent real life objects.

[joojaa]

So you think a face centric extrude is more accurate, fair enough. It isnt but the point is valid (its thinker at the vertex points than at the face centers. this is allways true too).

So the end result DEPENDS on wether you consider the surface smooth or not smooth. And how you consider the fit of your real surface to align with the mesh.