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Using the Push/Pull Tool on a Generic Solid


Jackson99

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Hi guys, 

 

I was pulling my hair out about this for most of yesterday and I'm hoping someone can help. 

 

I created a morphed rectangle using the Sub Division Tool and then converted it into a Generic Solid.

A little later I realised I needed to increase the height of my shape and thankfully the surface was perfectly flat so I tried using the Push/Pull tool on it. 

For some reason, it wasn't having any of it and the Push/Pull tool was powerless.

 

I thought that possibly the surface had been skewed somehow but when I checked this process on a regular cube (formed via Sub Division and then Generic Solid), it still doesn't alter it. 

 

What am I doing wrong? Surely the Push/Pull tool should work on any flat surface..? If not, what do I need to do to make it happen?

Otherwise the long workaround is going back to the original shape and rebuilding it with an increased height (which is what I ended up doing). Thanks in advance!

 

 

1747079243_ScreenShot2018-10-30at09_15_58.thumb.png.c01bd5d2f414d71835490a44fc24b6d0.png37343380_ScreenShot2018-10-30at09_23_04.thumb.png.9523b19eae63b8582345dda6f4b51fd3.png

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I have a suspicion there is a technical reason why the generic solid object created from the subdivision tool will not work with the push/pull tool. Probably something to do with the number of "segments" each resulting face is made from.  I just tried it and I am getting the same result.

 

The only way I can think of applying a push/pull effect is to use the Extract Tool and extract the geometry you need, copy it, move it to where the push/pull tool would have done, and then use the Loft Surface tool to create an additional solid which you add to the original.....

 

A bit of a workaround but it works

Edited by markdd
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Thanks for your suggestion Mark. I tried your suggestion however I'm not that experienced with the Loft tool and can't get it to work in this instance. I also tried something similar by creating another section that gained the height I needed however it wouldn't let me join the two solids. I have extracted the surface which I did yesterday, but it just extracts a replica of the issue - i.e. still not able to Push/Pull. 

On shape as straight forward as a cube, it's a pretty crazy issue to have slowing down a process which should be easy...

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Have you already  tried all UIOP options of the PushPull Tool ?

I think the most left one is a bit more aggressive - but creates Solid Aditions or Subtractions.

But that may not be much of a problem and can be reduced to a Generic Solid at the end though.

 

And there are other options as well, like when you need to extend the overall hight only,

you could scale or simply enter a new Z value in OIP.

(Works from the center and may need Object repositioning)

 

Or you could draw 2D Faces on parts of its Surfaces, extrude them and combine Volumes

and reduce later if necessary.

And similar things.

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Wow thanks Mark for taking the time to create the video. It's really inciteful indeed! 

I the only issue I have with your suggested method is that once you join the shapes at the end, you can see the join line. This was an issue I had encountered yesterday so I aborted trying to join two shapes together. Do you have a suggestion on how that could be resolved? If so, then your method is a perfect fix (other than Vectorworks fixing an issue where there shouldn't be one). 🙂

 

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I thought you may want to keep the Tesselation of Faces from theSubdivision

for your Generic Solid.

 

In VW 2019 you can control the Subdivision in Sup Polygons by the OIP.

Or better you can set them down to Zero before converting to a Generic Solid.

Then you can again use the PushPull Tool as expected.

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4 minutes ago, Jackson99 said:

 

Particularly that 'Create Planer Caps' tip is genious and something I've been looking for so long so THANK YOU!

 

Yes, didn't know that too.

 

But I think that would not be needed if the NURBS Curves would have been converted

to NURBS Surfaces before creating the Loft (?)

And if that still needs stitching or works just by converting to Generic Solid to bring

a real Volume ?

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Thank you Zoomer! You've cracked it, that's the answer. Reduce the iteration of Sup Polygons to '0' before converting to a Generic Solid. 

Then it just behaves like a normal shape that you can use the Push/Pull on. , I'd have saved hours of time yesterday. 

 

Thanks to both of you for the solution and a very good workaround with added tips! Much appreciated. 

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7 hours ago, Jackson99 said:

1747079243_ScreenShot2018-10-30at09_15_58.thumb.png.c01bd5d2f414d71835490a44fc24b6d0.png37343380_ScreenShot2018-10-30at09_23_04.thumb.png.9523b19eae63b8582345dda6f4b51fd3.png

 

Any of the shapes above could be scaled in one direction if they are generic solids. Generic solids have X,Y and Z scale boxed in the OIP. To scale their height, change the scale factor of the Z value. Alternately, if you prefer to do it manually, group the object, switch to a front view and drag the group handles to resize it as needed (you can use snaps this way). Ungroup the result and you have a scaled Generic Solid.

 

Ironically, you can use the Push/Pull tool after using the Group method to scale it in the testing I did..... perhaps there's a bug here.

 

Kevin

 

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