Finding breaks or voids
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I am created a rather detailed model of my new home. I did not have a cad floor plan to import, so I have been doing it manually. I have most of the first floor completed. I am to the point of using push/pull to lift the walls. Also, I use the paint bucket to give them color, making them easier to see. Unfortunately, as I attempt to either color or pull up the walls, I find there are several areas that simply will not lift. Or, the wrong parts lift. I have invested considerable time trying to locate unclosed or unjoined wall sections, which cause either the paint bucket or push/pull not to work, or work incorrectly. I still have areas that are failing, but I cannot find what is causing the failure. Is there an easy way to locate these anomalies?
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I have done things such as to insert lines to isolate areas. I've had some success with that process. I thought perhaps someone might have some clever way to make them more apparent.
Yes, I have seen situations where there was a fat line or more. I gather that thin lines are good and fat lines may be a problem. Some times while using that isolation technique, an entire area might turn into heavier lines. I cleverly recognized that as a clue. Some times the flaw is visible when I zoom waaaay in on the suspect line or intersection. On some occasions I have had success by replacing suspect lines or rectangles, even though I could not see what was wrong with them.
I'm not sure how I could have created something out of plane, so I assume everything is coplaner. Is there a way to identify things that are out of plane? Also, everything I've done so far is in one layer. I plan to use layers as I get further into this project. Lots of them.
I guess the most aggravating thing is that even though I take great care, I still create these errors. I'm a bit surprised by these 'loose ends'. I suppose it is something I am doing, or not doing as I draw.
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If you could post your model as an attachment it would be easy for one of us to look at it and help you....
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Thanks, but I have just figured it out. With everything flat, I couldn't see what was doing causing the problem. By using lines to isolate several areas, I am able to pull them up. Somehow I ended up with some hollow walls. Those are the ones causing the problems. I just couldn't see that when everything was flat.
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Staubbach,
Keep plugging. SU is very intuitive and with inferences you can keep the drawings properly alligned, butI know it is still easy to get some lines just a bit out of axis and sometimes cross or miss. One way to start out a drawing and to check a drawing for true axis allignment is to open STYLES - EDIT tab. At bottom of EDIT is a dialog box COLOR. It probably has "all same" in it. Change this to "by axis" then all of your line work will be in red-blue-green. This kind of drives me crazy to use for ling perioods, but is a good way to check for lines that have strayed.
Check out some of the ruby scripts also. There are a lot of free rubies and for a few dollars on Smustard you can pick up some small routines that pay for themselves quickly. To help straighten out a drawing look at:
cleanup.rb; extend close lines; intersect overlaping lines; eliminate lonely segments; delete short lines; close open line segments; extend close lines; lable stray lines; repair broken lines.
I find these very useful. By the way don't be afraid of or put off using rubies. Big mistake to do so. They are very easy and painless to use and cut out a lot of time wasted on trying to zoom around finding some tiny flaw.
Keep watching the forum - great amount of expertise and friendly help arround here. I only hope to be able to give back a smal percentage of what I have learned here.
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Thanks for the tips you folks have offered. I'll certainly look into the edit styles options and Ruby script usage. I thought there might be something to make it a little less painful. The isolation process certainly works, but it can be a large time investment. Although I have repaired the offending areas, I still have no idea how I created it. I may have done something when I was experimenting with Group and Explode. In this case there were no line breaks, so inferences (which I have been using as much as possible) were working. But... somehow I created hollow walls.
I have only casually looked at Ruby, but have not yet pursued it. I figured I should first get very comfortable and proficient with all of the stock SU tools, which I have done this past week. I looked at several 'Cad' solutions before decided that SU was probably at least adequate, and perhaps even ideal for this particular project. Some time in the future I might like to merge SU with a comprehensive Cad program and perhaps even a separate graphics program to make things 'pretty'.
Yes, forums can be very helpful. I was a little confused initially because I didn't find a search option. It was because I was already in the Newbie section, and the search option is only available from the SCF index. As I progress with my project I'm sure I'll need more answers. When I do encounter a problem I don't give up easily. I prefer to muscle through it myself. But, at some point in time you just have to set your pride aside and get some help.
Thanks guys!
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Dang it. Wrong again. I didn't see the search option because I wasn't logged on at the time. I didn't realize that search wasn't available unless logged on.
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There are a couple of "services" not available for "guests" (those not logged in) like search, view/download attachments and of course, posting.
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