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I am trying to cut out the "rotational path" of a cylinder as it rotates through a block.

So I created a bunch of copies of the cylinder and rotated each copy in increments of 7.5 degrees until I had covered the full range of motion.

Now I am trying to use a boolean modifier to cut each cylinder 1 at a time from the main block.

I can only get about 5 of the modifiers added before it starts to give me errors saying it cannot execute.

example

Any help is much appreciated. thanks

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  • $\begingroup$ Any chance to upload the file? You can upload it here. An example file is much more helpful to find a solution for that. $\endgroup$
    – Leon Cheung
    Commented Jul 18, 2016 at 6:31

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You may want to generate your "rational path" with a different cleaner technique possibly using some screw modifier or something different.

Your current method is bound to give problems sooner or later, most related to bad topology and self intersecting geometry both of them well known enemies of Boolean operations.

This has been asked countless times, search this site for "Boolean" and you will find hundred of questions about failed Boolean operations and all the recurring problems and solutions.

If you really insist in doing that way don't plan on being able to add dozens of live Boolean modifiers on top of each other interactively. Blender will eventually crash or most likely fail to preform operations well before that.

Apply your modifiers one at a time before proceeding to the next cylinder

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  • $\begingroup$ Hi thanks for the reply. Yea thats sort of the conclusion I was about to come too, but figured I better ask it anyway. Is there any way I could animate a single cylinder through the desired path and have it carve the block as it moves through it? $\endgroup$
    – Brandon
    Commented Jun 18, 2016 at 1:45
  • $\begingroup$ Well one thing is for sure you will only be able to successfully use a boolean modifier for this if you can generate a non self-intersecting geometry from your cylinders/path, which I think is the real challenge here, and I'm not sure I could come up with an acceptable answer for that. As for the shape itself it seems relatively straightforward. I would need a bit more information but it looks like it could be easily generated either with a screw modifier, or a bezier curve with a bevel object. Could you post some more info about the path you want to follow and the "section" of the shape? $\endgroup$
    – Duarte Farrajota Ramos ♦
    Commented Jun 18, 2016 at 2:09

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