Wimads Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 Hi all, I am trying to create a simple perforated metal sheet in vectorworks. 250x350x1mm sheet, 4mm diameter perforations 6mm apart. I basically create an array of cylinders in the pattern I want, and then subtract those from a 250x350x1mm solid. But that means subtracting a few hundred solids, so it takes a while to perform the action(though it does work without crashing) and the subtracted solid then is slowing down my model considerably. I could of course omit the perforations, but I would prefer not to in this case, because other parts of the model depend on it. Is there any way to do this that requires less resources? Quote Link to comment
markdd Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 (edited) You are best to make a renderworks texture to show the rendered holes. You can do this simply by creating the repeating pattern to scale on a design layer, making a screen shot of it and using that as the basis for the transparency shader in a renderworks texture. You will need to use a rudimentary image editor to crop the screen shot to exactly what you need though. This has worked really well for me for all sorts of perforated meshes and other materials where the actual geometry is likely to cause a significant slow down of the Model. Your Texture would look like this: come back with any questions.... Edited December 11, 2018 by markdd 1 Quote Link to comment
Wimads Posted December 11, 2018 Author Share Posted December 11, 2018 Alright, thank you markdd. I guess I'll just leave the perforations out then. It is not critical to have it in the model, would just have been nice. Some positions of other parts depend on it, but that can be determined without 3D geometry as well. Quote Link to comment
markdd Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 (edited) I just edited my reply with a bit more info. Here is the finished texture. Perforated Sheet.vwx Edited December 11, 2018 by markdd Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Wimads said: Hi all, I am trying to create a simple perforated metal sheet in vectorworks. 250x350x1mm sheet, 4mm diameter perforations 6mm apart. I basically create an array of cylinders in the pattern I want, and then subtract those from a 250x350x1mm solid. But that means subtracting a few hundred solids, so it takes a while to perform the action(though it does work without crashing) and the subtracted solid then is slowing down my model considerably. I could of course omit the perforations, but I would prefer not to in this case, because other parts of the model depend on it. Is there any way to do this that requires less resources? If you need the 3d geometry I would suggest drawing a rectangle and an array of circles. Use Modify>Clip Surface to remove the circle from the rectangle and then extrude the perforated rectangle. In my experience doing the subtraction in 2d first is a little more efficient than doing later in 3d. Kevin Edited December 11, 2018 by Kevin McAllister 3 Quote Link to comment
EAlexander Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 3 hours ago, Kevin McAllister said: If you need the 3d geometry I would suggest drawing a rectangle and an array of circles. Use Modify>Clip Surface to remove the circle from the rectangle and then extrude the perforated rectangle. In my experience doing the subtraction in 2d first is a little more efficient than doing later in 3d. Kevin I do this too - try to do as much boolean work in 2d as possible before going 3D. 2 Quote Link to comment
Benson Shaw Posted December 12, 2018 Share Posted December 12, 2018 (edited) Another approach which might lower overhead is to make a unit hole and array it: Start by drawing either a 2d square with a hole, or like @markdd's square with clipped corners. Then . . . Extrude>Create Symbol>Duplicate array or Array Surface. Resulting array can Add Solids, Deform, etc if nec. Textures would be easiest and scale easily, but can’t fill the edges of the holes so looks bad on thicker extrudes. Also difficult to compute open area, volume, weight. Perf manufacturers publish formulae for that data, so can be plugged into worksheets Edited December 12, 2018 by Benson Shaw Math Quote Link to comment
Benson Shaw Posted December 12, 2018 Share Posted December 12, 2018 Here's v2019 sample 350x250x1 symbol array. 2436 instances in OGL = 2.5 MB • Select All>Convert to Group (=2436 Extrudes)>Add Solids (took for EHVEEER) OGL = 220MB !!! • Select the Solid Addition>Modify>Convert to Generic Solid OGL = 94MB !! Same sheet made by circles clipped from rectangle then extrude = 16.7MB -B SymbolArrayv2019.vwx 1 Quote Link to comment
Wimads Posted December 12, 2018 Author Share Posted December 12, 2018 17 hours ago, Kevin McAllister said: If you need the 3d geometry I would suggest drawing a rectangle and an array of circles. Use Modify>Clip Surface to remove the circle from the rectangle and then extrude the perforated rectangle. In my experience doing the subtraction in 2d first is a little more efficient than doing later in 3d. Kevin 4 hours ago, Benson Shaw said: Another approach which might lower overhead is to make a unit hole and array it: Start by drawing either a 2d square with a hole, or like @markdd's square with clipped corners. Then . . . Extrude>Create Symbol>Duplicate array or Array Surface. Resulting array can Add Solids, Deform, etc if nec. Textures would be easiest and scale easily, but can’t fill the edges of the holes so looks bad on thicker extrudes. Also difficult to compute open area, volume, weight. Perf manufacturers publish formulae for that data, so can be plugged into worksheets 2 minutes ago, Benson Shaw said: Here's v2019 sample 350x250x1 symbol array. 2436 instances in OGL = 2.5 MB • Select All>Convert to Group (=2436 Extrudes)>Add Solids (took for EHVEEER) OGL = 220MB !!! • Select the Solid Addition>Modify>Convert to Generic Solid OGL = 94MB !! Same sheet made by circles clipped from rectangle then extrude = 16.7MB -B SymbolArrayv2019.vwx Thanks for the suggestions. Tried all, and eventhough it makes a bit of a difference it is still slowing down my model too much. I'll go with the render texture option I guess, if I really want to show the perforation. Quote Link to comment
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