topic Re: How to "cookie cutter" combine three objects? in Meshmixer Forum

How to "cookie cutter" combine three objects?

Anonymous — Thu, 06 May 2021 20:45:03 GMT

Object 1 & 2 are identical. They're the 50mm darker grey circular disks (bases) that are just barely overlapping. Object 3 is the lighter gray oval disk.

I want to use 3 as a "cookie cutter" - in other words, I want only the parts of 1 & 2 that fit on top of / inside 3. I know I could use the select tool, manual select the areas I want to delete, and delete them. But this is an exceptionally tedious process (I've done it several times before) and fraught with error (speaking from experience). Is there an easier way to do this?

Ideally, I'd also want to extend the lowest textured surfaces of 1 & 2 to cover all of 3. In other words, I want 1 & 2 to define the texture detail of the resulting surface, while 3 defines only its area.

Thanks in advance for help!

Re: How to "cookie cutter" combine three objects?

Anonymous — Fri, 07 May 2021 13:07:07 GMT

There seem to be non manifold mesh errors in mesh 1 and 2 (highlighted by those red dots). Repair both objects using ANALYSIS/Inspector first.

Now check the mesh density of mesh 3. It seems that it is low poly. Hit W to show the wireframe. To do the following all meshes should own similar densities. So if needed use SelectAll (Ctrl+A) and do Edit/Remesh to adjust the density for each.

Now I would add a default plane object 4 from the file menu. Make it a bit bigger than the current scene. SelectAll of it and Edit/Extude it to the height of the desired base. EDIT/Align it to the base grid.

Acitivate mesh1, mesh2 and mesh4 (hold down Shift to activate more than one object) and run EDIT/Combine or pairwise BooleanUnion.

Using EDIT/Transform scale up the height of mesh3 so it includes all the height of the combined object.

Activate both objects and run EDIT/BooleanIntersection....

Re: How to "cookie cutter" combine three objects?

Anonymous — Fri, 07 May 2021 17:10:48 GMT

Thank you for the help! I fixed the manifold mesh errors and increased the density. Here's my best shot at getting the mesh densities to match. I eyeballed it - so if there's a way through settings or firm numbers to make them match exactly, I don't know how to do that.Mesh match attemptThe intersection tool looks like what I need exactly. Except when I try to run it, I get an error every time: (I originally had this with the plane #4 that you suggested, but meshmixer crashed and I figured this was a sufficient re-creation to get my point across). Is there something I need to get through this error? I've tried several combinations and can't get the intersection tool *not* to error out.Intersection Error