Boolean Logic
Download Houdini File: Boolean Concepts.hiplc
Boolean logic is all about shape relationships. Cutting holes into a geometry with another geometry or combination of different geometrical shapes to create new shapes.
Boolean Non-Overlapping
Non-Overlapping
Only take away the space where both geometries do NOT intersect. If you ever had a room mate, you would know to respect each other’s privacy and both of you should not invade each one’s respective space. The green represents each one’s private space and the white is like the common area within the apartment.
Boolean Overlap
Overlap
Reusing the previous room mate analogy, the overlapping space being the green area in the diagram is very much like the common area in an apartment shared by A and B. If you ever wanted to logically specify only the common area, which is the only overlapping green space in the diagram, boolean overlap will do the job.
Boolean Overlap
Here the overlapping space between a cube and cylinder creates a half moon shape.
Boolean Subtraction
Subtraction
If you ever used a hole-puncher to make binder holes for your paper notes, this would be a fitting analogy for boolean subtraction. A will be your paper and you would punch a hole with B into your paper A. This results in a hole within A.
Boolean Subtract
Here’s a cube where a piece of it has been taken out, like someone taking a bite out of a cookie. A cylinder was subtracted from the cube resulting in a concave shape on the side.
Boolean Union
Union
Boolean union simply combines all shapes into one, but there’s one catch. The overlapping space gets squished into one, so you don’t get more about the union operation. And in some cases, you’ll even result in less space after doing a union operation, because the overlapping space does not get duplicated.
For example in the diagram, there’s a bit of space that A and B overlaps in the middle, and after the union operation, it only counts once. Therefore if A and B weren’t as close together and didn’t have any overlapping space, doing the union operation in that case would result in more space.
Boolean Union
Do a union with a cube and cylinder to create a completely new shape.