How to cut hole through wire framed trellis?
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HI
ive made a trellis and i want to cut a circular hole through it to show where we want a doorway through the trellis. cant work out how to do this easily.
can anyone advise me?
thanks
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Make a vertical profile of the shape of your door. Extrude the profile into a "solid", group it and position it where you want the hole, making sure that it protrudes through the wire mesh. Select the solid and enough of the mesh, right click intersect selection, move the solid out of the way, erase inside the area where the solid left an outline, or formed new lines. You should have a hole of the desired profile. Did I understand your question?
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thanks for your reply. i did try that but sketchup said that one of the objects was not a solid. i made the trellis just using the arc tool, so its just lines. ive then made the trellis a group.
@mitcorb said:
Make a vertical profile of the shape of your door. Extrude the profile into a "solid", group it and position it where you want the hole, making sure that it protrudes through the wire mesh. Select the solid and enough of the mesh, right click intersect selection, move the solid out of the way, erase inside the area where the solid left an outline, or formed new lines. You should have a hole of the desired profile. Did I understand your question?
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I did zoom in on your model image, but did not think about the fact that the mesh is just lines and not tubes or pipes. However, I just assumed that new vertices would be created in an intersect operation at the perimeter of your "solid". If not, then draw the lines on your solid between the points where the mesh disappears into the face of the solid paying attention to the inferencing tool tip indicating point at intersection. If this does not work, I might suggest to transform the mesh into tubes, but there would probably be a lot of creating faces at the ends of the cut tubes. I suggest also, if you go the tube route, that you keep the cross section/profile simple, like maybe 3, 4 or 6 segments, just for file size management. Otherwise, if you are going to view this only from a distance then perhaps make the mesh into thin strips with no volume. Those figures in my current avatar are tubes developed after a gross distortion in a complex transformation using Fredo taper. I liked the result.
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thanks for the advice. i will give it a try with the tubes.
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Hi, clayc:
Consider making one vertical tube, make it a Component, then rotate copy(Select comp, Q+Control in windows) that to do the others. Multiple instances of the same comp keeps file size down. Or, if it is not a circular footprint then Move Copy along the path. Or, if you are familiar with plugins, there is a plugin or two or three for copying along a path. -
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If you go the component route, you probably only need to make the tubes 4 or 5-sided, not true 24-sided circles, as that is probably more detail/faces than you need.
I'm surprised the intersect with... command didn't do what you wanted. That's a standard command, not a Solid Tools command so it shouldn't have given you the "not a solid" message. Are you sure you were following mitcorb's suggestion correctly?
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Wyatt, since he drew the trellis as just lines with no faces, it wouldn't be a solid. And Intersect is for faces not for edges.
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Dave, maybe we're talking about different things, but I don't think that's true. Grouped faces can cut ungrouped edges with the Intersect Faces with Model command. The group doesn't necessarily have to be "solid." Unless someone is using the Solid Tools, there is no way to get a "not solid" error simply by intersecting geometry. The default "intersect with" tools don't check for solids. Maybe I misunderstood Mitcorb's original answers, but I don't think he was suggesting the use of the Pro Solid Tools.
I guess it depends on the result clayc is looking for. If he needs a frame around the cut edges (which I'm guessing he does in this case), then Jean's method of adding faces is definitely the way to go. If he doesn't need that frame, then Intersect Faces with Model will cut the lines just fine.
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Hi, Wyatt, and others:
I didn't realize that the term "solid" in quotes would be taken any other way but "not a true solid" according to the Sketchup definition. I apologize about that. I was using the term as shorthand for a closed volume. Just because you have a collection of faces that happens to close on themselves, thereby surrounding a theoretical volume does not mean you have a solid--apparently, until Sketchup 8 Pro showed up. Sorry, I am drifting off topic. -
Hi Everyone
thanks for your advice on this. i didnt get notified of these replies so i went with the tube technique using components but i still cant seem to cut through them. i will work on the intersect right click a bit more but im not having much luck with it. i might try the faces technique as proposed in an earlier reply.
the only problem with not using tubes is that the trellis doesnt cast a shadow.
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Hi folks.
To get a shadow from edges, open the Shadow settings dialog box and make sure that the checkbox labeled "From edges" (bottom right) is checked.
Just ideas.
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thanks Jean. lots of great advice. every time i think ive come to the end of sketchup's capability another door opens
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