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I would like to flatten (scale to zero thickness in a specific direction), then solidify the result of a dynamic (un-applied) Boolean (difference) modifier, and see no obvious way to do this...

My ultimate goal with this is to generate a shape that is a variably thick slice of a dynamic volume, with perpendicular thickness, that does not extend beyond the bounding volume. Is there an easier way to do this?

if you collapse any closed convex polyhedron along any arbitrary axis, any part of the collapsed shape will have two polygons (a front and a back face) for all points within the flat shape... If the shape is concaved, you may have parts of the flattened shape with other even numbers of faces at some regions on the resulting flat shape. (You will see this as z-fighting as the shape is drawn on the computer.) I am unaware of a way in Blender to simplify such a shape to a set on non-overlapping faces.

enter image description here

enter image description here (Thanks to @stacker for creating the wireframe that is much easier to see than my rendered image.)

The ring highlighted in orange in the wireframe image is actually the negative space around the slice that I'm trying to dynamically create. I included it in the .blend file to differentiate the shape I wanted from a simple Boolean intersection modifier.

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  • $\begingroup$ Could you add a sketch of what you want to achieve? $\endgroup$ – stacker Jan 5 '16 at 17:53
  • $\begingroup$ This image is less clear than I hoped, but I think the .blend file will be easier to understand. The green slice is my intended result... the red strip around it is the difference between Suzanne and the thin rectangular prism... the rest of Suzanne and the prism are there in glass for context. $\endgroup$ – Loren Osborn Jan 9 '16 at 20:03
  • $\begingroup$ image ModifierSketch.blend $\endgroup$ – Loren Osborn Jan 9 '16 at 20:14
  • $\begingroup$ Notice that all sides of the green slice are normal (perpendicular) to the large faces of the prism. (It's not obvious from the model, but the green piece is the largest possible subset of the intersection with this property.) @stacker , thanks for suggesting I post an image. As far as srink-wrapping to a plane: This gives me the right "shape", except that it has excessive overlapping faces, which makes it useless for the solidify modifier. (a "scale" transformation is no better. :-( ) (Please excuse my multiple comments... this is my first question posted to StackExchange.) $\endgroup$ – Loren Osborn Jan 9 '16 at 20:26
  • $\begingroup$ @LorenOsborn After reading your question I had an idea of what steps could be required but had no idea of what you really want. This part of your comment above : "This gives me the right 'shape', except that it has excessive overlapping faces" could be the right question. Could you emphasize on this? $\endgroup$ – stacker Jan 9 '16 at 21:54

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