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Hello all,

Happy New Year!

I'm creating some relatively complex geometry using a lot of intersecting curves and blocks but seem to be achieving this in a rather hit and miss way. In pursuit of good practice I'd like to get a firm grasp of (what I'm sure are fairly simple) modelling principles.

The attached file shows the type of thing I'm doing, I need to combine these 3 shapes to create a single extrudable surface. I find it simple to use some arcs, rectangles, circles etc and simple add surface to amalgamate them all. Yet occasionally I have problems joining surfaces, especially when I use a concave arc.

Messing about with decompose/compose and switching solid off and on I'm managing to fudge solutions as I go along. This object I push/pulled the three surfaces separately and then added solids to get what I needed. I'm sure there's some simple way to do this that an experienced user would intuitively know.

Thanks.

Edited by RCrussellUK
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

The reason these aren't adding together is because the middle object is a 3D Polygon, which is technically flat in this case, but it is still considered by Vectorworks to be a 3D object.

You will want to use all 2D geometry to create a flat profile. You can either draw them originally with the (normal)Polygon or other 2D tools, or select the 3D polygon and use Modify > Convert > Convert to Polygons on it.

Also, make sure all objects you intend to add surfaces on have a solid fill. The center object had a fill of None.

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Guest Wes Gardner

An easy way to remember:

Add and Clip Surface are 2D operations - you'll usually end up with a polygonal shape. 2D stuff typically STAYS 2D stuff...

Add and Subtract Solids are 3D operations - you'll usually end up with a Solid Addition/Subtraction.

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Another quick one. I draw a shape using a working plane on an angled surface then need to extrude it at 90 degrees to the layer plane rather than the working plane it's drawn upon. There must be a button somewhere to switch the plane the extrusion extrudes from? Is it the second one on the Push/Pull toolbar, but this only seems to work when extruding 3D surfaces not a 2D surface drawn on the surface of a 3D object?

Edited by RCrussellUK
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An easy way to remember:

Add and Clip Surface are 2D operations - you'll usually end up with a polygonal shape. 2D stuff typically STAYS 2D stuff...

Add and Subtract Solids are 3D operations - you'll usually end up with a Solid Addition/Subtraction.

Thanks Wes, I think I'm still getting confused at some point about which is which (in terms of drawing 2D shapes with 3D settings) will refine this.

On the subject, I seem to remember there is someway to trim away the sub-object info which records the addition/subtraction information for 3D objects. Is this the 'convert to generic solid' option?

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Guest Wes Gardner

No need to apologize, these discussions help you as well as other users as well as make it more clear to us where we need to focus our documentation/training/etc.

Please, keep asking!!!

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