[Bf-committers] Booleans

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

Work on that area is definitely welcome! What is your proposed next  
step? Make this a C library, stick to python, or recode the current  
system?

-Ton-


On Wednesday, Sep 8, 2004, at 07:20 Europe/Amsterdam, Theodore  
Schundler wrote:

>
>
> Abstract:
> Anyone know what exactly is going on the the booleans project on
> projects.blender.org -- specifically should I continue work on my
> implementation or is that project actually ready to go?
>
> Details:
> About two months ago, I E-Mailed Laurence of the Booleans project on
> projects.blender.org, asking what as going on with it, and got no
> response. Since I heard no response, and there appeared to be no
> headway, I assumed development was abandoned or stuck. About a month
> ago, frustration drove me to implement a boolean routine myself. Rather
> than start in C, I started in Python as it would make the testing of  
> the
> algorithm faster (i.e. no need to recompile), and easier to share with
> others. Today I saw jesterKinky on IRC mention a test build for
> booleans. So now I'm wondering if the booleans project om
> projects.blender.org isn't dead after all. And if it isn't dead, is my
> take on booleans worth continuing work on?
>
> My boolean algorithm works right now. If the other system at
> projects.blender.org is actually near working, then I'd figure the
> feature set is the deciding factor of what gets actually used in an
> upcomming release. So here's all about mine:
>
> The python version and a discussion is at:
> http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=29200
>
> It supports four operations - union, intersection, difference, and
> 'cookie cutter' (for lack of a better name).
>
> Cookie cutter cuts a mesh (adds verticies and edges along the
> intersection loops), and selects the verticies that are inside the
> cutting object. Then removes either the 'inside' or 'outside' parts or
> neither (i.e. just adding new verticies and edges for extruding or
> whatever later).
>
> The meshes it produces have no doubled edges, and no more verticies  
> than
> needed. And in many cases it fills with quads (preffered by users as it
> reduces visual noise). Soon the quad filling will even be better.
>
> Optionally the second mesh can just be a set of 2D, non-filled shapes,
> which will be extended infinitely along the shape's normal for the
> operation. It's intended to he handy cutting out logos and such. Bezier
> curves should probably be supported with this behavior too, but I
> haven't coded that yet. (see the picture in page 3 of the elysiun  
> thread
> if that explaination didn't make sense)
>
> It sounds like people are interested in using it as a cutaway effect  
> for
> games and visualizations. So, I plan to also have a special bounding  
> box
> and infinite plane mode accessible through the python API or something.
> The simple box or infinite plane cases can be very quickly evaluated.
>
> Also, due to requests, I'm also considering using the function as a  
> base
> for a non-destructive boolean effect (i.e. object's effect tab), for  
> use
> in animations and such.
>
> Additionally, recently I've been playing around with the idea of it
> calculating smooth intersections -- so for smooth / autosmoothed faces,
> the intersection point will not be flat it the plane of the face. So
> there are no atifacts of strange flat faces due to how they are
> subdivided when rendering with smoothing on. (Though I'm not promising
> that as a feature, just a deffinate maybe)
>
> So that's that. Should I continue?
>
>
> Ted / SpookyElectric
>
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------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton at blender.org  
http://www.blender.org