How can I punch a hole in a cylinder?

Questions
1

I’m trying to create an “info” button by combining some primitive shapes. So far I have the outer wall (cylinder), inner wall (tube), the white background (disc), and the “i” (another cylinder, and a cube):

The tricky part I can’t figure out – how can I use the “tube” to punch a “hole” in the outer cylinder? I looked around for some sort of notion of subtracting meshes, but haven’t found anything. I see there’s a way to “merge” meshes with a custom function, but the math involved in that is daunting.

My other option is to use a “filled” info button with a raised “i” (e.g., File:Eo circle blue white info.svg - Wikimedia Commons) instead of a “ring” info button like I’d prefer to use (e.g., Category:SVG Info icons - Wikimedia Commons).

I’d be happy with either one, but if there is a way to easily use one mesh to punch out the interior of the other (and still have the inside faces), I’d love to know how!

2

You might be able to rely on CSG for this which lets you add substract meshes together:
CSG | Babylon.js Documentation

2 Likes
3

Dadgumit, I looked all over the place and never ran into that class!

It worked beautifully, here’s the result:

3 Likes
4

What a frighteningly complex problem.