Trying to open a window -- frustrating!
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I've drawn a church, and made gothic-pointed window openings. Decided to go crazy and make a stained glass window for one of them; figured I'd group it and copy it for the other fifteen window spaces. Somewhere along the line I must have inadvertently erased the wall plane on the inside of church (side I was working on), and it's too far back to undo backwards -- too much of the intricate window had been created. So I thought, 'simple; I'll simply redraw the line at the top of the wall and get it back. Yes, that part happened, but now I had to draw at least one line of every window opening to make the part of the wall inside the window a separate entity to be deleted. That worked fine, until I got to the stained glass window. I have redrawn every line, have selected the wall plane and intersected it with model, and each plane along the edge trim of the window (it's more complex now) and intersected those with model, and yet the part of the wall plane inside the window will not separate from the rest of the wall. I've taken to making a rectangle inside the window space, deleting that part, then trying to 'bite away' bits and pieces, triangles and squares, until I reach the edge. It's not happening.
What can I do about this dilemma? Oh, and yes, I've ungrouped everything that was part of that window and trim.
HELP!
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@unknownuser said:
......I have redrawn every line, have selected the wall plane and intersected it with model, and each plane along the edge trim of the window (it's more complex now) and intersected those with model, and yet the part of the wall plane inside the window will not separate from the rest of the wall. I've taken to making a rectangle inside the window space, deleting that part, then trying to 'bite away' bits and pieces, triangles and squares, until I reach the edge. It's not happening.
What can I do about this dilemma?....
Hi Gigi, what if you connect the outmost loop of the window face with the next loop that bounds the inner wall face. There are known cases where you force the wall face to separate into two faces (here the window face and its surrounding face, the wall).
As it is now it sounds like you have two faces z-fighting, one is the wall face (incuding the part where the window is) and on top of that the part where the window is supposed to be.
They won't intersect. -
@wo3dan said:
......They won't intersect.
They won't intersect unless you draw such a connecting line.
Right after you can delete the line again. Faces stay separated. -
@wo3dan said:
They won't intersect unless you draw such a connecting line.
Right after you can delete the line again. Faces stay separated.Are you telling me that all I have to do is draw a connecting line between the exterior or perimeter line of my wall, and the line that inscribes the window opening? And this will separate them into two discrete entities?
I'm asking instead of just trying because while waiting for an answer, I first inserted all of my grouped windows into their respective openings, and when there still was no answer, I thought I had no choice but to erase every line I had drawn in the original window (I guess when you make a group, and copy the extra one, the original does not stay grouped!), and remake the opening if necessary, then insert one of the copies. So I no longer have the recalcitrant wall on which to practice your advice!
This is a very important thing to know! I've been dealing with this problem since I started using SketchUp.
Thanks for the advice, Wo3Dan! Gigi
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@unknownuser said:
..Are you telling me that all I have to do is draw a connecting line between the exterior or perimeter line of my wall, and the line that inscribes the window opening? And this will separate them into two discrete entities?...
Yes, that was my suggestion. It's not fullproof for I don't know for sure whether you had two overlapping (z-fighting) faces in the model, but in some cases when 'intersect with model' doesn't work to separate these faces, just a single (temporary) line helps.
Unfortunately you don't still have that wall face to try.What exactly have you been struggling with since you started using SU?
I'll see if I can upload an example with that same problem reproduced.
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@wo3dan said:
What exactly have you been struggling with since you started using SU?
I'll see if I can upload an example with that same problem reproduced.
I've been struggling with lines/shapes that won't meld into the surface I'm drawing them on, meaning that I can't create shapes to delete or extrude or do anything I want with. If the lines don't meld, or weld, or whatever it's called, it's just a line in space, not on the surface.
I don't think I had the z-axis struggle happening, Wo3Dan. I'm quite sure there weren't two surfaces (at least that I know of, or could see). Just one surface of the thick wall that had vanished I could see into the wall), which was replaced the moment I drew one horizontal line across the top. The problem was that the windows, which have lines on that plane, did not "cut" those windows open (so to speak), so I had to do it manually. That was fine. It was that stained glass window I had created, with lots of trim on the front edge, that wasn't allowing me to make a separate entity of the window space, so I could delete it and "open" the window opening. But I'm almost done doing it manually (sounds like I'd be more than done if I had waited patiently!), and then I can attach the church to the point I have it done. But it won't show the problem anymore, but perhaps my descriptions will make more sense.
Gigi
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Well, I spoke too soon. Even with all the extraneous trim lines gone, trying to meld the outline of the window opening onto the new wall plane is proving impossible!
I'm going to attempt to attach two screen shots of the interior and exterior views of the problem. I hope you can help! Gigi
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@unknownuser said:
..I don't think I had the z-axis struggle happening, Wo3Dan. I'm quite sure there weren't two surfaces (at least that I know of, or could see)...
Could it be that both faces weren't coplanar in the first place. Well, just guessing.
See attached file to see what I ment in the first post.b.t.w., why don't you create one 'glue to / cut opening' component to cut the inner wall face.
A second one (matching the first one) could cut the outer wall face to create the entire opening including stained glass. Scene 2 has the first component and basic geometry on the outside.
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Could you upload (part of) the model as *.skp to check.
From your description it's still hard to tell what is going on. -
@wo3dan said:
Could you upload (part of) the model as *.skp to check.
From your description it's still hard to tell what is going on.Oh, good! I'm actually logged in again. I tried to answer you no less than eight times! The first one had a SU file attached. I'll try again.
Oh, yes, I had also asked how you managed to put a transparent stained glass window in your model? I wanted to do that with my church, but didn't know how -- so I ended up making my own. That takes a lot of time, of course...
Hope this works, this time! -Gigi
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@unknownuser said:
...Oh, yes, I had also asked how you managed to put a transparent stained glass window in your model? I wanted to do that with my church, but didn't know how -- so I ended up making my own.....
The stained glass is an image from internet, imported 'as image', exloded, and next the face texture is edited by setting opacity to ~40%. It's far from ideal and should be done in an image editor program before importing. This was just to demonstrate the entire component.
I had a look at your model. It took me some time to get that opening fixed.
Some notes:- There are quite a few (hidden) stray lines in the vicinity of that opening. You better delete them.
- The loop (perimeter) of that opening isn't clean, (unnecessary lines attached to it).
This makes it difucult to create a separate little face inside that perimeter.
Also try to heal (not just weld) collinear edges. To see all the unnecessary segments turn on 'Endpoints', set to 3 or more). - To work on the inside of the church you could apply a section plane in the middle of the church. (Disable viewing 'display section planes' but leave 'section cuts' visible)
Your view won't be blocked when orbiting. - to finally create that separate little face, draw a rectangle around the 'window-opening-to-be' and start connecting the window opening perimeter with that rectangle.
After three or four lines I got it separated. Next I deleted the unwanted lines again plus that little face. - If you don't have the ruby StrayLines you can find it here:
http://www.smustard.com/scripts/
It's great for investigating and cleaning your model.
btw, the window perimeter was/is coplanar with the wall face. No problem there.
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@wo3dan said:
The stained glass is an image from internet, imported 'as image', exloded, and next the face texture is edited by setting opacity to ~40%. It's far from ideal and should be done in an image editor program before importing. This was just to demonstrate the entire component.
I had a look at your model. It took me some time to get that opening fixed.
Some notes:- There are quite a few (hidden) stray lines in the vicinity of that opening. You better delete them.
- The loop (perimeter) of that opening isn't clean, (unnecessary lines attached to it).
This makes it difucult to create a separate little face inside that perimeter.
Also try to heal (not just weld) collinear edges. To see all the unnecessary segments turn on 'Endpoints', set to 3 or more). - To work on the inside of the church you could apply a section plane in the middle of the church. (Disable viewing 'display section planes' but leave 'section cuts' visible)
Your view won't be blocked when orbiting. - to finally create that separate little face, draw a rectangle around the 'window-opening-to-be' and start connecting the window opening perimeter with that rectangle.
After three or four lines I got it separated. Next I deleted the unwanted lines again plus that little face. - If you don't have the ruby StrayLines you can find it here:
http://www.smustard.com/scripts/
It's great for investigating and cleaning your model.
btw, the window perimeter was/is coplanar with the wall face. No problem there.
I appreciate all your help -- but I don't know HOW to do many of the things you suggest. I didn't know I could import images and explode them, so I've done that (very cool), and I've alse gotten rid of the extra white space on the two upper sides of the gothic window. Now for the opacity -- where do I find the command that will allow me to set that?
Yes, I can imagine there were hidden lines. When I was trying to weld the leaves in that wreath on the bottom motif of the window, they wouldn't weld until I added lines, but they'd unweld when I deleted them again. So I hid them. When I erased the entire window, they must still have been there. Sorry.
When there are unnecessary lines attached to a line or shape edge, how do I find them to delete them? I never know -- I zoom in as much as possible, but often I still can't locate them. Is there a trick? (Is turning on "Endpoints" the trick? I couldn't find that command anywhere.) Also, sometimes I do locate a line that's floating by itself in space, and when I delete it, it deletes an entire face! How does that happen?
How does one "heal" an edge? What does it mean to heal an edge?
I did use your suggestion to draw a rectangle around the window and start connecting it. It was like magic! I wish I had known this long ago. Also, a couple of rectangles of the face disappeared, so that gave me a clue that that's where I had edge problems. Zooming in allowed me to fix them, and then I could redraw that plane. It worked like a charm!
Thanks for your help, and your tutoring. I learned a lot from this exchange!
Gigi
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You can import different file types (*.jpg *.png etc.) in various ways, i.e. as image, as texture on an existing face and as ‘New Matched Photo’. The latter to re-create 3D shapes (like buildings) from a flat photo with the right perspective information in it.
An image needs to be exploded to ‘degrade’ into a textured face to edit its texture.
Right click on the texture and in ‘Entity Info’ click the texture to edit it.
In that very menu you will see how to change opacity.The advantage of importing ‘as image’ and next explode is that the texture perfectly fits the new face. Unlike when starting to import directly as a texture to an already existing face.
What is healing segments? First enable viewing ‘Endpoints’ to see what is going on.
SU’s menu Window > Styles > Edit > Edge Settings (first icon) > enable ‘Endpoints’ at say 3 or higher.
(Also have profiles ON for different reasons though).
Now that you have endpoints ON you can see how healing collinear lines works.- draw a line, say 10’
- right click on it and use divide to split it up in say 3 segments.
- at this point you can select each segment on its own.
- you could weld the segments into one curve (use weld.rb = weld ruby script).
Welding will still mean a straight curve with 3 segments. So not one single line. - but since the segments are ‘in line = collinear’ they can be healed into one line
again. How? Draw a short line from one of its inner “segment connecting” endpoints to anywhere and delete that short line again. The “segment connecting” endpoint at this time vanishes. You are now left with one long segment and a short one (instead of 3 short ones). Repeat and you are left with one long line like before you divided it.
(There is a ruby script to heal collinear lines in a model)
The StrayLine.rb script lets you find lines with one free endpoint in the selection you make. You really need it to investigate your model.
See previous post to Smustard page to download StrayLine.
http://www.smustard.com/scripts/
On the same page you will find the Weld.rb ruby script, also very useful -
@wo3dan said:
You can import different file types (*.jpg *.png etc.) in various ways, i.e. as image, as texture on an existing face and as ‘New Matched Photo’. The latter to re-create 3D shapes (like buildings) from a flat photo with the right perspective information in it.........On the same page you will find the Weld.rb ruby script, also very useful
Wow, this is really useful stuff! I thought I'd seen all of the tutorial videos, but I guess there are some I haven't. Or maybe one just has to learn some things with time and experience -- like anything else. This information is very useful to me, Gerrit, and I thank you very much for your knowledge, and for taking the time to explain it to me!
Things are buzzing along smoothly now, and I hope I won't have any other issues. But if I do, I will be sure to come back to ask!
Gigi
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