CompuServe Messages

Hi everyone, the slice feature is a very powerful tool for modelling, but sometimes it can be one of the most frustrating things in Imagine. Especially when trying to slice one object many times: "error splitting faces". Sometimes it helps to move one the the objects just a little, but not always. Slicing produces a lot of very small faces and points. Especially when you try to slice again in these areas you'll get the error. I'm just modelling an object where I have to use slice many times (7 times). To get rid of uneccesery points and small faces I loaded the object into another program that can reduce the point count by merging points that are close together (it's possible to enter a threshold). After optimizing the object this way it was possible to slice it agin without problems whereas it was not possible (I tried many many times) before. I also manually optimized the number of faces to keep the number of points small. Even if you don't slice through the previous sliced area (with the large number of points) it seems to help if the object is optimized. Maybe we can convince Mike to add this feature ("enhanced merge") in one of the next versions, since it helps a lot. I think there is a freeware program that reduces the number of faces in a DXF file, but I'm not sure where to find it. I used one of my other 3D programs. -David