trashcan Posted October 13, 2021 Share Posted October 13, 2021 I've done this a few times now and I'm looking for best practices / a faster solve. I got this DXF from the manufacturer: I then go through and delete all the junk I don't care about: I then do that in a fine tuned way trying to delete all the artifact junk from the DXF: Then I pick a surface as my base extrude and use the command "Combine Into Surface" and extrude it to the depth that I want: Then I rinse and repeat for all the other blocks and then combine at the end. Is there a faster / smarter way to do this? 2 Quote Link to comment
Art V Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 15 hours ago, trashcan said: Then I rinse and repeat for all the other blocks and then combine at the end. Is there a faster / smarter way to do this? Unless you manage to get hold of Harry Potter's magic wand then probably not. 🙂 You could try to create only the base volume without rounded edges, then put the side surface areas to each respective side and use push/pull to subtract/extrude to the desired depths first and then round all corners where necessary. That is how I would do it in my other CAD program which can recognize enclosed surface boundaries for push/pull but in VW it doesn't work as smoothly so that is one thing where I would like to see VW improve. 1 Quote Link to comment
trashcan Posted October 18, 2021 Author Share Posted October 18, 2021 @Art V yeah, you'd think you could do that in VWX... Quote Link to comment
trashcan Posted October 18, 2021 Author Share Posted October 18, 2021 I'm slowly plugging away at this model "in all my free time" And I got stuck: I have two shapes that I need to do a multiple extrude with a depth of .291" It gets super nasty if I do a multiple extrude: If I just the bigger rectangle and do a flat extrude at .291", and then use Deform-->Taper Solid, I get close to what I want but not exactly right: Close enough for jazz! But how do I do it right, I wonder? Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted October 18, 2021 Share Posted October 18, 2021 I'm confused as to why you got those results using Multiple Extrude. This kind of shape right?: Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted October 18, 2021 Share Posted October 18, 2021 It looks like the two shapes have different "Directions". If you use Polygons instead of rounded rectangles, you will be able to see the direction and then you should be able to get what you want. 4 Quote Link to comment
Art V Posted October 18, 2021 Share Posted October 18, 2021 Another option, depending on the exact shape you need, could be lofting a solid provided you have the proper number of curves etc. It may take a bit more time but overall it could be a bit less cumbersome as well than having to try to get it right with tapered extrudes etc. 1 Quote Link to comment
trashcan Posted October 19, 2021 Author Share Posted October 19, 2021 (edited) @Pat Stanford coming in hot for the win to help me figure this out. Changing the direction yielded this result: The smaller polyline object has 13 vertices. The bigger poly line has 51. Hmmm. I recreated the object that had too many vertices and it only had 13. When I did it that way, here were my results: Whatever method I used to create that bigger poly (don't remember) must be the culprit. @Art V I have not used loft solid before (or don't remember using it). Do you have any recommendations on where / how to get started? Edited October 19, 2021 by trashcan Quote Link to comment
trashcan Posted October 19, 2021 Author Share Posted October 19, 2021 Another question. I have created the feet for the projector: To create that rounded edge at the bottom of the foot, I created a sphere and used the split tool to use only the portion of the sphere that I needed for the foot. What remained was a Solid Section. Later, I needed to snap something to the bottom of the foot and I wasn't able to get any smart points. Usually when this happens, I switch to wireframe, but oddly that rounded portion doesn't show up! I tried converting the solid section to a generic solid and a nurbs and still had the problem. Any ideas? Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted October 19, 2021 Share Posted October 19, 2021 Probably better to make the bottom of the foot a Sweep instead of a solid section if you want the snap point at the bottom. Extrudes (and lofts) between objects with different numbers of vertices are always a dicey proposition. Glad you figured it out. Quote Link to comment
trashcan Posted October 21, 2021 Author Share Posted October 21, 2021 @Pat Stanfordwhat's weird about the solid section thing is that I used that same technique for the lens. So we know it works sometimes. Open GL: Wireframe: Went back to the foot where that little guy doesn't show in wireframe. Maybe it has something to do with scale? Scaling up it still doesn't show up in wireframe and it isn't clickable. Maybe it has to do with how I made the solid section? Hmmm nothing weird there. So I redid it: It worked! Weird... I also tried your sweep method and of course that worked perfectly, too: Weird, thanks for the help Quote Link to comment
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