Creating Faces
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Hi everyone,
I just wanted to see if there was an easier way to do this,
I use illustrator or cad to produce parametric patterns, then import them into Sketchup with the aim of extruding through boxes to create custom mesh like structures.
My problem is that when I import a dwg file into sketchup it gives the the outlines and then I need to draw a line through the individual objects to give them faces, then delete the line to make the face whole again. This is a really long process when I have hundereds of these to do, is there easier ways of giving outlines a face?Thank you,
Richard -
Hi Richard. You might give Make Faces a go.
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If it's a 'flat' pattern you can draw a rectangle over the whole thing, that's much bigger than it is.
Then Select the pattern and the rectangle, and right-click context-menu 'Intersect Faces > with Selection'.
The pattern should now have individual faces.
Erase the four edges of the rectangle you just made so the unwanted outer faces are gone.
If the new faces are looking 'down' - i.e. you see the 'blue' back material, then turn them to face 'up' using right-click context-menu 'Reverse'. Pick on face only and Reverse it, then with it still selected use right-click context-menu 'Orient' and all faces connected to the selected face with also be reversed to match it.
If some shapes don't get individual faces it's because they are not forming a continuous loop. To see such edges use a Style that has Edges and Profiles showing with a notable thickness difference for the Profile - now outermost edges and any unfaced edges will shown up as the thicker 'profile' format, faced edges will be the thinner type... Now it's easy to spot any problems and redraw parts, close gaps etc to fix them... -
Thank you very much guys, I cant believe I didn't think of that! Hopefully will save me a lot of time!
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