> On 08/04/2011 7:54 PM, Christian Froeschlin wrote:
>> Stephen wrote:
>>
>>>> Why put each leter in an union? Each leter is an object and can be
>>>> manipulated as such.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It is a technique for when you are using a modeller that does not have
>>> a local axis.
>>
>> I'm not sure I understand this. If you refer to the need
>> to apply individual transformations to each letter, then you
>> can use an "object" instead of a "union".
>

> When you use a modeller like Moray or Bishop3D you cannot have anything
> other than the Text object being on a plane. So to have the letters at a
> constant distance from the centre or rotation without using any
> mathematics, I create a letter at the origin and move it in the Z axis
> to the correct position. Then I create a union at the origin and add the
> letter. Next I copy the union and change the letter, repeat until I have
> a word or phrase. I would then adjust the kerning manually by rotating
> each union. To simplify orbiting the letters I create a final union at
> the origin and add the other unions then translate and rotate the final
> union.
> It sounds a roundabout way of doing it but in reality it is very simple
> and quick. If I were using Moray there would be no need to create unions

>

Then, don't use a modeler for your text but use the text primitive to 
create your individual letters. Unless a letter appears 100's times, 
you'll use much less memory, you'll save parsing and loading time, and 
the difference in render time won't be that important. Also, no faceting 
nor mesh artefacts.

Anyway, the letters from those modelers are mesh objects, one mesh 
object per letter, even for a word, with duplicated letters in the word 
as several meshes. Missusing union causes many "Sould have more than one 
objects in CSG". It also makes your code ugly.

Whenever you have one object union, you should use object.



Alain

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