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Is there a way to give a Mesh thickness?


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I am trying to model a very irregularly-shaped roof. I tried Loft Surface initially which was ok but not as precise as I wanted. Then I plotted a load of 3D Loci over the surface of the roof (point cloud), created a Site Model + Ungrouped it to give me a mesh. It looks great but I would really like it to have a thickness (be a solid). I have tried various options including a very laborious Shell Solid operation which kind of worked but not really... Is there anything else I can do? I only want it to be 50mm/2" thick. Or a completely different approach?

 

This is the mesh:

815299669_Screenshot2021-08-25at16_21_47.thumb.png.60aa460242e0e461c577008eb664dada.png829962676_Screenshot2021-08-25at16_22_00.thumb.png.f1360568198c0022aa9a30da18eb914e.png

 

The 3D Loci:

2024780378_Screenshot2021-08-25at16_36_42.thumb.png.4f9a0089242bb3f2fa1c15acf27b8224.png

 

Thanks!

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Wow @jeff prince thanks for looking at it that's really cool! Great file explaining all the steps: thank you very helpful. I did briefly look at the 'Stitch + Trim Surfaces' command before but from Help it looked like it wouldn't be any use so didn't try it out: very glad to have been shown otherwise! What a useful tool.

 

I spent hours trying to achieve what you did - I kind of knew there must be a way of using Subtract Solids to get what I wanted - but I never would have figured this out so thanks again for taking the time. Retaining + utilising the site model skirt is a no-brainer: I just immediately got rid of it + then forgot it ever existed. Duh. It's so great to keep learning new stuff. This is going in the manual... 🙂

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@Tom W.my pleasure.  You know me, I always like a good brain teaser like this.  I took me two tries to get this one.  During my first attempt, I generated the site model w/o a skirt.  When I got to the point of doing the facia and was faced with drawing all those faces, I realized how useful the skirt would be.  The time consuming part was making all those loci for the site model 🙂

Edited by jeff prince
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Hi @jeff prince inspired by you I thought I should try + up my game a bit + I found another even easier way to do it:

  1. Create a Landscape Area the full size of the Site Model + give it a single component the desired thickness (e.g. 50mm).
  2. Select both the LA + the Site Model + Ungroup them.
  3. The LA becomes a Mesh: use Convert to Generic Solids to turn it into a solid.
  4. Delete the now redundant site model elements.

Has the added advantage of allowing you to add extra components to the LA for rafters or whatever if required.

1968655593_Screenshot2021-08-26at13_00_41.thumb.png.bd53bb289b78e24e5a55c0d73c6909ba.png

Edited by Tom W.
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Thanks @Claes Lundstrom when I try this I get 'Shell creation failed'... I get the impression it's a bit of a fickle tool + doesn't like it if the shape is too complex?? It does work if I break off a smaller section of my roof.

 

My first attempt at all this yesterday was using the Shell Solid Tool but I had to select the facets individually + shell them in batches. If I selected too many the command would fail. Then when I'd finished I tried using Add Solids to create a single monolithic object out of the separate groups of Shells + for some reason this wouldn't always work either so I ended up with a minimum of 3 or 4 separate objects rather than one. Then to top it all when you looked at the underside of the 'roof' you could see the gaps between the facets where they followed the curvature of the roof... 

 

So far the Landscape Area method wins (despite the perversity of needing Landmark to create an architectural feature!)

 

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16 hours ago, Tom W. said:

Thanks @Claes Lundstrom when I try this I get 'Shell creation failed'... I get the impression it's a bit of a fickle tool + doesn't like it if the shape is too complex?? It does work if I break off a smaller section of my roof.

 

My first attempt at all this yesterday was using the Shell Solid Tool but I had to select the facets individually + shell them in batches. If I selected too many the command would fail. Then when I'd finished I tried using Add Solids to create a single monolithic object out of the separate groups of Shells + for some reason this wouldn't always work either so I ended up with a minimum of 3 or 4 separate objects rather than one. Then to top it all when you looked at the underside of the 'roof' you could see the gaps between the facets where they followed the curvature of the roof... 

 

So far the Landscape Area method wins (despite the perversity of needing Landmark to create an architectural feature!)

 

The shell fail may be caused by the model being grouped. Make sure that it's a single ungrouped model.

 

Shell admittedly works better on a generically generated NURBS shape. Older versions of VW actually handled mesh to NURBS conversions better though.

 

Here is a fun little project: I generated a boat hull shape in an external program, forming a closed volume. I then generated a copy being 1.2 mm smaller in all directions, forming an inner volume floating inside the outer volume. I then exported the two shapes in separate layers, and merged each volume into a single mesh. I then did a Solid Subtraction, cutting out the inner volume from the outer. It took quite a while for VW to do it, but it worked. I then divided the model into two parts using solid subtractions, to make it fit into my humble $200 22 x 22 x 25 cm 3D printer envelope. The 45 cm long model took about 40 hours to print . I was actually surprised how well it came out.

 

To sum up, I think the VW units relying on Siemens Parasolids actually works quite well. It shows that this engine is one of the best.

Solid Mesh project.jpg

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@Claes Lundstrom that's very cool. 

Would I be able to send you my mesh for you to have a look at + see if you can Shell it successfully? Although I've achieved what I wanted using a Landscape Area it feels it should be doable within the 3D Modelling tool set rather than Site Planning so be really interested to know if you can get it to work in my case!

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  • 1 year later...
On 8/25/2021 at 10:45 PM, jeff prince said:

@Tom W.

I took a stab at it.  The trick is to give your site model a skirt to use for developing the facia 🙂

Another trick, make a copy of the site model w/o a skirt to use as the roof surface for easier texture mapping.

Attached file has descriptions in the design layers for the steps I took.  Hope it helps.

 

1166539221_oldmcTomWhadafarm.thumb.png.bc57685f3ad647eea5bc1e8dc5a2644b.png

 

irregular roof.vwx 17.17 MB · 19 downloads

hmmm, not having much luck, I can't seem to create nurbs from the site model skirt... I get this message...

image.png.2e5083a51053f13f50f2203191de4673.png 

 

I have included my site model into the file above...

irregular roof v2023.vwx

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20 minutes ago, Amber Hine said:

I have included my site model into the file above...

 

Perhaps you can sketch and describe the final result you are trying to achieve.  Your site model seems to have a few odd 3D loci that may be creating a problem, but that's incidental to the bigger picture.  What is the desired final result?

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So Its essentially a roof park.

 

With this process I am trying to achieve a thickness to the top layer that isn't as deep as the site model skirt... say 30cm, ideally such that I can project up to from below with the shapes below that will form the vertical glass walls....

 

I don't know weather seeing the below may help... really it will be the projecting up that'll help with at this point- I have a facia now 🙂

image.thumb.png.669cd6139645fa66dd8a01a4d3076f21.png

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Yeah, I would abandon the notion of using a site model for the anything but the finished landscape surface.  You need to extract NURBS curves from the edge of the site model to use for those glass walls you mention.  Then it's just another Extrude Along a Path, as I described in your other thread, to generate the glass walls.

 

In terms of representing the roof garden build up, you can always explode your site model and use solid tools to create a solid representation of the fill.  This can be helpful when needing to calculate volumes when the underlaying support structure is irregular.  Here's an example of that, but I wouldn't use the extruded contours, rather I would use the Mesh you already have of the finished landscape and combine it with the desired sides and bottom to create a solid representation.

 

 

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