Cad
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Can anyone give me some pointers on how to use cad lines in SU. I have a site plan and I would like to create faces from it so I can easily use the push/pull tool to create curbs, streets, sidewalks, etc... Everytime I try to create faces I get the error that the lines are not coplanar or that the lines do not form a closed loop.
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When this happens to me (and does all the time with curbs) it's because SU segments curves...therefore straight lines no longer hit them correctly. I manually fix each (after changing the number of segments to fit the look...level of detail...I'm wanting) by moving the end points of the curves to the end points of the straight edges they are supposed to touch. There may be a ruby to do this for you...?
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It may be a good start to try the straylines ruby to show where some of the errors in the cad drawing are. It will allow you to pinpoint any gaps and correct them.
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Hi perk,
At Smustard's there are a couple scrips for cleaning up sloppy cad files in su.
- CloseOpens "...looks for lines that are supposed to touch and don't, and then draws a line connecting the open segments. This is one of several good CAD cleanup scripts.".
- DeleteShortLines "...will remove those annoying little lines that overshot their target. Good for use with CAD cleanup chores."
- ExtendCloseLines "...will find lines that are fall short of touching their intended target and extend them in a straight line to touch their intended target."
- Flatten "flattens 3D objects to 2D, placing all entities on the Z=0 plane."
- MakeFaces "...loops through your model and creates faces where faces need to be created."
- StrayLines "Label, Select, Delete or Show all the open-ended line segments in a drawing. This is an EXCELLENT script for assessing how much cleaning up an imported CAD drawing will need."
These are mainly that could help you. Most of them not free however but I guess if you can save considerable time with them, mthey are worth the bucks.
As Dylan says, you may start with StrayLines. It is free and you can decide whether you really need the rest.
Instead of the flatten script, you can also simply drape your cad lines onto a big-enough face and make sure this way that everything is coplanar (you would lose your layering this way though - at least on the draped surface).
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Make faces is one of the best free ruby's out there.
Also good CAD drawing practices will help.
Stuff like snaping to endpoints, closing polyline areas etc -
What I often do is to place the (hopefully coplanar and 2D) linework onto a big face, select all and intersect selected. Since SU6 lines can be intersected on faces. Works similar as MakeFaces.
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Thanks for the tips. I haven't had a chance to try any yet But I will as soon as I have the oportunity.
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