I'm trying to split a 180cm humanoid polymesh into slices with 4cm distance inbetween, so 45 slices. My intention is to get the contour (looking from top view) of the mesh at each of these slices to later arrange them for cutting out real-life material, so if i stack the cut out shapes i get an approximation of the original digital model.
Now this may not be the kind of task Maya is meant for, but as it is the one program I would like to learn as much as possible in and about, I would like to use it anyways, if possible.
My approach right now is straightforward and I'm a little stressed that it doesn't work:
I just created appropriate sized and placed (4cm space inbetween) planes meant to be cutting objects through the polymesh of the human. Like multiple knives that should just cut the mesh. I then hope to find a way to get the individual contours from the planes (extract them) and convert them to NURBS curves.
I can however not find a way to slice the mesh with multiple cutting planes all at one time and doing it one by one, boolean, then extract, recreate the mesh etc etc etc does not seem like something a program that expensive would really ask from its user. So this way it would basically be one task that needs to be repeated multiple times, with minor changes (height -4), although of course i don't know if this way even works for my intent. Maybe there is some magic MEL could do, but I'm not familiar with that yet.
I'd be glad if someone more competent could give me some hint or idea, even it is "use inventor (e.g.) you fool, it's one single click in there" and maybe tell me what to click
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I tried cut face, which again would be a one by one thing, but might work.
A more efficient solution would be preferable of course (45 pieces is alright, but what if one wants to make 2000 slices to get an MRI-like effect?).
Kind regards,
Borlag the noob