Getting it straight about Booleans

[Stiglr]

This feature is frustrating in the extreme and I just can't figure out how to get the results I want.

OK: Let's say I have an aircraft fuselage shape, and I need to cut out a few banks of windows. So, I create a poly shape in the shape of the window, extrude it to intersect the fuselage at a right angle (across x axis), so as to simultaneously cut the window on both sides in the same parallel position.

Then, I enter Boolean, select the window shape as A, the fuselage as B, use the check box to select the A window shape to be Deleted (as I don't need it after it's gone) and select Subtraction B-A.

Logic tells me that after I complete this, the fuselage shape only should remain with two window shaped holes on either side (and completely through the fuselage if it's solid and not hollow.

This doesn't happen. The window shape remains, and often a totally new fuselage remains in the exact position. I've sometimes found that the shape I actually want, called CSG0 or some such, is actually there, but it's hidden by the original fuselage shape, which can't be detected since they are exactly sharing the same space.

That makes no sense. Should i select the fuselage to be Deleted as well?

I'm kind of at sea here, and want to learn how to do this in one quick and easy trip throught the Boolean section without headaches.

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On a similar note, it might be really nice to be able to select an item you want to display as Only Selected from a list of objects in the file. That way, if you want to check your Model Info and find out what some object is named 'cylinder' that you're not sure what it is, and forgot to name the object while you were creating it, you could quickly find out. It would also help you sort out CSG0's from extraaneous fuselages in the above case.



Still, though, I love this product.