Cutting Complex Patterns Into Solids

[Chame_liam]

Having a very difficult time with this one and am really running out of things to try.

 

I have a model that I'm working on that has some 4500mm tall hexagonal pillars that are currently just drawn as extrudes. The designer on the project has just handed off to me the DWGs with the patterns we will eventually be cutting into the pillars and we need to get this into our vectorworks model for our construction drawings and then later so I can do renders in depence. 

 

From the DWG, everything comes in as it's own polyline which isn't unexpected but is there a way I can do this simply - just selecting the pattern for each one and removing it from the solid? Or removing the pattern from a surface and recreating the hexagonal pillars out of that flat surface?

 

I've tried everything I can think of and it's all either produced unexpected results or has caused Vectorworks to lock up.

[Pat Stanford]

Try extruding the poly lines and then Subtract Solid to remove the extrudes from the hex pillars.

[Jesse Cogswell]

I think a couple images would go a long way to helping me understand what you are looking for.  Are the hexagonal pillars "shells" with the patterns cut into each of the six faces?  Or are the pillars solid with the shapes cut in recess?

 

Getting the shapes into the faces are going to be roughly the same process regardless, but if you want the shapes to punch all the way through each face, then you will need the pillars to be shells.  Luckily, there is a tool that will do this for you, the Shell Solid Tool found in the 3D Modeling toolset.

 

This tool allows us to select a solid, specify a thickness, and select an open face.

 

Two hexagonal pillars, standard Extrude on left, Shell on right with open bottom face and 1" thickness

 

In terms of getting your shape onto a particular face of the pillar, you could try using the Set Working Plane tool, which will allow you to select a face to be your Working Plane.

 

Selecting a face:

 

From here, we can use the Look at Working Plane button to set the view looking directly at the selected face.

 

Any 2D shape we draw from this view will now be directly on the chosen face of the hexagonal pillar.  Either we can manually draw a shape, or we can copy and paste from the flat DWG file.  What's most important in this step is that the shape needs to be a single closed polyline / polygon object, not a combination of lines, arcs, and polylines, as AutoCAD sometimes wants to break them up.  If the shape is constituted of multiple lines / objects, select all of them and run Modify - Compose to turn them into a single shape.  Then just make sure that the Closed checkbox is checked in the Object Info Palette.

 

We can Copy said object from the standard Top/Plan view, then set our view to a face using the method above, and then Paste.  When you do this, the shape will come in flat to the floor, so change the Plane drop-down in the OIP to Working Plane and position the shape accordingly.

 

2D Shape in Top/Plan View:

 

Initial Paste:

 

After Working Plane selected in OIP:

 

Shape positioned on object:

 

From here you can extrude the shape.  A negative value will punch the shape toward the inside of the pillar, a positive will bring it out from the pillar.  It's up to you which one you want, but in my experience, you really want to make sure that if you want a full hole, you want the extrude to poke out a bit from each side.

 

 

From here, select both the pillar and the shape, and run Model - Subtract Solids.  The "main" solid will be highlighted in red, make sure it's the pillar.

 

 

You should now have a hole in your pillar.  If each of the six faces have these kinds of shapes, make all of your shape extrudes, one for each face, then select all of them and subtract them in one step.

 

Hole punched, inside of Pillar textured in blue for clarity:

 

If you are needing to have the shape "recessed" into a solid pillar, the steps are largely the same except you will want to make sure that your extrude is set to the proper depth.

 

Shape recessed 6" into pillar face:

[Kevin K]

You know….the files would really be helpful so we can understand exactly what it is you need … you know the old saying ,a picture is worth a thousand words’? : -)

in my case I need the dwg file and a 2022 file….then perhaps I can sort it for you.

[Chame_liam]

I've attemped these methods in my initial crack at it... I'm wondering if what I'm trying to achieve is too detailed.

 

Here are the designs I am trying to work with - they'll eventually be laser cut into the plate, acrylic backed and LED behind, hence me actually trying to cut it out rather than just overlaying the shape on the hexagonal pillar.

 

 

 

Thanks very much for the detailed answers so far though!

Edited August 14, 2023 by Chame_liam

[Jesse Cogswell]

Okay, those images help a lot.  The way I would approach it is very much the method I describe above with some key notes:

• Each hole / aperture shape MUST be a single closed polyline.  Use the Compose command to make them such if they are not already
• You can select an entire face's worth of hole shapes and extrude them all at once.  This is something that typically makes VW very grumpy, and may be what is leading to some of your issues when doing a Subtract Solids operation.  HOWEVER, if you select the Extrude and Ungroup it, it will instead turn into a bunch of extrudes, each with a single polyline.
• With this in mind, I would do each face as an extrude, either on the face directly using the Set Working Plane tool or by extruding in Top/Plan and rotating the resulting extrudes in place.  Once all six faces are placed, I would grab the six Extrude hole objects and ungroup them all at once, resulting in dozens of extrudes.  From there, add the pillar to the selection and run the Model - Subtract Solids command.  This should result in your more or less finished pillar.

When using either Subtract Solids or Add Solids, you want to stay with as few steps as possible.  Every time you do one of these operations, it adds a step to the final object's "history."  There is nothing in VW that will make your file size huge and your drawing choppy than having a bunch of objects with really complicated histories.  It also becomes really hard to edit since you have Solid Subtraction nested inside Solid Subtraction nested inside Solid Subtraction, it's best to do it in a single step.  Once you are satisfied, you can then run Modify - Convert to Generic Solid to remove all of the object history.  This will make the file size smaller and the drawing snappier, but you will no longer be able to edit the shape, so it's best to do it at the very end and save a backup from before converting just in case.

 

I'm tapped out for tonight, but if you post a partial file with one of the DWG pillar cutouts, I will attempt to fab one up in the morning.

[Kevin K]

Liam

I am on Tahiti time, so not quite as tapped out as Jesse 🙂

i have about an hour before it is lights out, so if you want, post just one panel of the dwg cut-outs and I can send the file back to you with a brief explanation of the steps needed.

Jesse was spot on with his Input, so maybe you can try it yourself. Honestly, it is not rocket science once you know a few rules.

’Kev

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

9 hours ago, Chame_liam said:

Having a very difficult time with this one and am really running out of things to try.

Lots of good info on this thread.  Having said that, you have quite a task ahead of you.

I have a question.  

The shapes you have shown, is the laser going to cut out a volume or just etch the outline.  The reason I ask is that some of your shapes seem to overlap onto more than one face.

If that is true,

- the laser etching  just needs to see the outline, the depth an be set on the laser side.  If that is the case, I might do this with the Project tool in the NURBS pallete

- If Solids, there would be many methods, but I would likely look at intersect first.

 

NOTE: if you go the Solids route and it particular Add Solids, they don't have to touch to add.  If you have many shapes that are not touching, Add Solids will still work so that you could performs a "Intersect Solids" to get the etching path.

 

[line-weight]

I would consider building these as individual flat faces, then assembled into the hexagonal columns. Why? because it might help keep a handle on how what looks like a continuous pattern wraps around the 5 or 6 faces.

 

I would lay out the 6 faces alongside each other, as if the column wall had been unfolded. I'd put the laser-cut pattern behind this "unfolded" set, in a different class or layer. This would let me check that the pattern runs between the faces exactly as I want.

 

I'd make each face as a simple extrude and then subtract the pattern from it. This might involve copy-and-paste-in-place-ing and slicing up the pattern, to make the necessary pieces, but the reference pattern could remain in the background, as a check that things weren't getting displaced.

 

So I'd end up with the 6 faces, each with the pattern cut out of them, lying side by side.

 

Then I'd make each face into a symbol and assemble the finished columns out of symbol instances, each face moved and rotated into its rightful place.

 

Any further edits to the pattern, I'd not need to touch the assembled columns, I would do all of the editing in the original symbol instances, which would still be clearly laid out next to each other.

 

All of this might need a bit of careful duplicating, and moving things in and out of the original symbol instances, but as long as they don't move in space, this can usually be achieved by using the paste-in-place command. It it's usually possible for example to replace one of the subtracting objects, within a subtraction solid, without having to re-perform the subtraction operation. As mentioned above, the more layers of subtraction/addition you have, the more you make your life difficult, but if you can keep a handle on things, I find this kind of method can be quite efficient.

 

(For example... if you want to subtract objects B-Z from object A, there are a few different ways of doing this, and some make certain changes easier:

- (((((A-B)-C)-D)-E)....-Z) done by subtracting B from A, then C from the resultant solid, etc - normally a very bad way to go

- A-(objects B,C,D,E....Z) done by multiple-selecting everything and choosing A as the object to be subtracted from

- A-(addition object of B+C+D+E...Z) done by adding B-Z then subtracting that from A.

The two last methods produce subtly different means of making subsequent changes, and I find the latter can be an easier way of keeping a handle on things.

 

Whether it would be worth using this kind of approach probably depends on the likelihood of the pattern getting changed in the future, and how precise the drawings need to be.

 

Also, I might start out happily with the above plan and then at some point realise something wasn't going to work, due to the peculiarities of how VW behaves with symbols and solid subtractions.

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

This is no small task, but doable.  I mentioned earlier the Project Tool could be of use as it would work with poly-lines.  I think you may have to use all of the suggestions on this thread either separately or in conjunction with each other.

 

 

Made a short video on the projection tool, but applies to Solids also.

 

 

[Pat Stanford]

11 hours ago, Chame_liam said:

Here are the designs I am trying to work with - they'll eventually be laser cut into the plate, acrylic backed and LED behind, hence me actually trying to cut it out rather than just overlaying the shape on the hexagonal pillar.

I think you are going to have a hard time trying to generate a render of reality for something like this. 

 

If you only need this for a render, I would convert the designs to 3D polygons, offset them 0.1mm from the surface of the pillars and give them a GLOW texture. That will make them look like they are illuminated.  Trying to make actual cutouts and them get light sources behind them all that will give uniform illumination will be much harder in VW than in real life.

 

$0.02

[Matt Panzer]

You could also try filling the closed shapes, exporting them out as an image and create a texture that uses the image as a transparency map.  You could try one image and map it so it aligned on each of the six faces or maybe create six separate textures (one for each face).  It might take a little time to create and map the textures but they should render much faster.  Of course, you won't see anything in Hidden Line renders...

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

On 8/14/2023 at 1:56 AM, Chame_liam said:

hey'll eventually be laser cut into the plate, acrylic

You getting lots of good info on this thread, but will the laser cutting be done from your design or is this just a visualization project?

[Matt Panzer]

5 hours ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

On 8/14/2023 at 1:56 AM, Chame_liam said:

hey'll eventually be laser cut into the plate, acrylic

You getting lots of good info on this thread, but will the laser cutting be done from your design or is this just a visualization project?

Ok.  So the texture idea will only help for visualization purposes.  However, I assume you only need 2D for the laser cutting so it may be a reasonable approach.

[Chame_liam]

Alrighty! With a combination of most of the suggestions above I got there! Couple of things for anyone playing along...

 

- a couple of the designs I found the easiest way to fix was to jump into Illustrator, use the pathfinder tools on the original paths to cut them out of the plate there, then bring the DWG back to Vectorworks to extrude. This did still require some finessing in Vectorworks but Pillars 1 and 3, 4 were pretty quick using this method.

- Pillar 2 I had lots of problems with interestecting geometry but given it is mostly straight lines and 90 degree angles, I spent an hour tracing everything to get it workable

- Pillar 5 caused a bit of a meltdown on my end due to the detail so got the original designer to give me those faces as 6 separate nurbs surfaces. Used the push/pull tool on them to extrude. Weirdly I had to use different modes of the push/pull tool for this to work. Some faces worked with the extrude face mode and some only worked with the move face mode. 

- Other than the last one, I had greatest success working on the plate as a whole design laying flat, then splitting into 6 faces and folding them into a hexagon profile.

 

 

Thanks all!

Edited August 16, 2023 by Chame_liam

[Benson Shaw]

This doesn't discount  any of the previous ideas or methods.  All good. My experience is that laser cutting would be full sheet with subsequent bend to 3d.    Cut/weld facets would likely be much more expensive than cut/bend a full sheet.  The 2d on full sheet is not so difficult if the drops (cutout shapes) are arranged/placed to match when the edges are joined. Sheet width is 6x facet width.  The drops need to be placed at integer multiples of the sheet width (or certain fractions thereof).  Sheet metal bends are always slightly radiused.  Your sheet metal shop can help determine if that level of accuracy is required. So self direct whether to undertake this technique via Deform tool to model similar to final product.  

 

Another note: In my model, the extrude has zero thickness and then is shelled to sheet thickness after bending.  The bend can be made with a thick extrude, but vwx takes successively longer time to process each bend command.  There is also some mystery limit to the sheet/shell thickness. ???

 

Anyway, here's the skinny

 

-B

 

 

 

 

 

[Benson Shaw]

Forgot to mention some potential cutting issues. Check with the cutting personnel for tips and limitations:

 

The 2D layout is best if the drops are individual polys arranged on the sheet outline - whether whole sheet or the 6 facets. Rather than the clipped poly used for the extrude. 
 

Some cutters software interprets only straight segments and circular arcs. Beziers or splines may not be recognized or may be “exploded” into a few or many straight segments. 

Get a proof prior to the cut. 
 

-B

[Kevin McAllister]

My 2 cents from doing a lot of this type of thing - always do the clipping with 2d polylines first, then extrude. Using solid subtractions is less reliable for the cutout work. Remember you can edit a polyline's cutouts using Command [ (Mac).

 

Kevin