Having trouble with solids....
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Hi, my name is Kyle, and I am a drafter for a sliding door company. I am trying to make details for our warehouse using GS8 (not pro) of our notches and cannot seem to make them on the solid. I have downloaded the solid editor ruby plugin, but it won't recognize my parts as solids enough to edit them. Maybe there is a different plugin? Perhaps it's even simpler than I am making it. Please help!I have attached the file so you may see what I'm working with and what I'm trying to accomplish.
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Hi Kyle,
There are lots of standalone edges in those components:
Also, nested components will never be reported back as solids. You have components inside components... -
Derp...Yes, there is another object inside the main object, but these also get the notching. I take it this means I would have to do them separately. Thanks!
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@iibpdrafter said:
Derp...Yes, there is another object inside the main object, but these also get the notching. I take it this means I would have to do them separately. Thanks!
Actually, I misunderstood. We usually have a stiffener inside this and I didn't realize it wasn't in there. I was able to resolve those issues and make the notches accordingly. I don't know why it was eluding me for so long. However, this was very time consuming and not efficient at all. I am hoping for a better way to do this besides learning to program the ruby console myself. Any suggestions. Here is the drawing with the notches.
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Here're a couple of things to think about that might help. First, despite aiming for what is termed a "solid" group or component, the 3D shapes you create are not really solid. You must have faces to enclose the shape. Think about the cutter you would use to cut a real block in one pass and draw that shape and extrude it through the block. Select the block and the extruded shape, intersect them and delete the unneeded geometry. Since your pieces with the notches have to fit the track or whatever it is, you can use a copy of the track as the cutter for the block. You can't use the track itself because you need to leave behind the part of the "cutter" in the block.
So here's one approach in the SKP file.
- The track.
- the un-notched block siting on the track.
- I opened the track component for editing and selected the faces that contact the block. I copied (Ctrl+C) those faces, closed the track component and opened the block component for editing. Then I hit Edit>Paste in Place. There's a copy of the block in the background showing the results of that.
- I selected all the geometry in the block component, right clicked on it and chose Intersect Faces>With Selection. Then I deleted the waste bits of the track surface. In the background you can see the block with the outline of the notches.
- Finally I deleted the waste on the block leaving the notches.
Now for a simple block like I drew, you could just use Push/Pull on the waste side of the profile but the method I showed would also work on more complex shapes as well.
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also look for the plugins:
trim and keep
remove lonely verticesand thom thoms solid inspector is sometimes useful.
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Let's step back and consider a simple definition of a 'solid'...
A "container" - group or component - is considered to be a 'manifold solid' if it just contains 'faces and their edges' [note that 'guide geometry' is ignored]; but nested group or component-instances within it will mean failure.
The "container's" edges must all have faces...
If any edge has no faces then the "container" is not a solid.
If any edge has only one face then it's forming a 'flap'... so then the "container" is not a solid.
If any edge has more than two faces it's forming an ambiguous form - an internal 'partition' - so then the "container" is not a solid.So a 'manifold solid' contains edges that all have two faces - i.e. no more than two faces, no fewer than two faces...
If it doesn't then it ain't a 'solid'
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