Boolean union of two 2D meshes keeping topology

[Anonymous]

Hi. Sorry if asking something obvious, a beginner here. I'm looking for a way to merge two 2D meshes into a single one with correctly combining the topology of both meshes (keep original vertices / edges, no layered overlapping faces etc). Please see the illustration below. This is fairly simple in Blender via knife project but I spent a good couple of hours searching around how to achieve something similar in Maya and seems can't find any solution.  

Any ideas please?

Thank you

[keith112]

Hi,

Interesting. Unfortunately I can't think on the top of my head a one click operation to do this.

It's easy enough to do it using layers and the multi-cut tool. 

1. Place both pieces on top of each other
2. Select your first image (The pyramid shaped one)
3. Add it to a layer and change the layer to Reference
4. In the top view select the multi-cut tool and just cut over your geometry of the square with the X.
5. If you feel the vertices are a bit off you can snap them by holding down 'V' with the move tool and middle click them to snap.

Someone might be able to help with a better way but for now that's all I can offer

[Anonymous]

Thanks keith112

Trouble is I have an enormous number of huge complex 2D meshes. Doing this by hand is not going to fly I'm afraid. I'm looking for an automated way of sorts. Sorry, I should stated this in the original post!

[mspeer]

Hi!

There is no tool in Maya that does this (as far as i know).

[keith112 · Accepted solution]

So I'm not sure if this would help but you can create your secondary edges into curves and then use the 'Project curve to mesh' in the edit mesh menu.

Again you said you have a large amount to do, so the best way would be to create a script that just repeats your wanted command.

Wish I could help more.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Thanks keith112. I'll give it a shot although I'm not sure this is going to fly with 40K+ edges in the mesh even if automated.