Reduce height of extruded objects to zero?

Jim Canale

From time to time I want to refill some of the holes I have placed in 3D models.   They may be round, rectangular or irregular.   If I had retained the profile of each hole, it would be very quick to extrude the profile, and UNION it with the model.   But I haven't always had the foresight to save the hole profiles.  

So I am wondering if there is a quick way to obtain the profiles of individual holes, from the 3D model.    I realize I can generate a 2D drawing view on a layout tab, and export it to model space.    But isn't there a faster way to do this? 

I can EXTRUDE my 3D model  in the opposite direction, making the object very thin.  But that does not result in polyline profiles of the holes.  It is just a thin 3D model.. 

There must be a command for doing this.

Louis_Verdonck

Dear Jim

To delete a hole, select its faces then choose Delete in the Direct Modeling command group in the Quad. Selecting the faces of a hole is easy for a circular hole, because it has only one face: hover over the inside face and when it highlights choose Delete in the Quad (see Delete_Circulare_Hole.gif). As showed in the Delete_Hole.gif you can easily select all faces of a polygonal hole using the window inside selection method: press the Ctrl-key once to select faces, then choose Delete in the Quad.

Delete_Circular_Hole.gif

Delete_Hole.gif

Jim Canale

Lous,

Looks simple.  Excepting it doesn't work for me.  I just drilled a new round hole through my object.  I can hover all over the hole, and the face of the hole is not selected.   I held the control key while clicking on the hole.  After several long minutes of clicking I finally was able to select the hole face, and delete it.  But it is very unreliable.    Is there something wrong with my snaps or other settings that is preventing this from happening?

Louis_Verdonck

 Jim, you must have the Selection Modes set to 'Faces' when hovering over the inside face of the hole, which is best done by clicking the 'Enable selection of 3D solid faces' button on the Selection Modes toolbar. A pressed button indicates the option is selected. Good luck!

Joe Dunfee

 I have sometimes had problems selecting curved surfaces.  In those cases, I can normally select it by clicking on one of the tessellation lines.

-Joe

Scott McKenzie

The other option, is to copy the solid, explode it once, delete all of the regions except for the one showing the end view of the hole, explode that last remaining region, delete your hole, do a polyline join on all of the entities and then re-extrude - kinda painful.

If you prefer to go without the quad - it varies for me - the delete faces tool is also available on the solids editing tool bar or by using the SOLIDEDIT command with the D(elete) option.

Joe, try setting SELECTIONMODES to 0 to see if that helps with choosing a face to delete.

Ilya Tatarnikov

 Hi all,

In upcoming V15.2 you can easily solve this with GENERATEBOUNDARIES command. Just hover the face with a hole and call boundary generation command from the quad.

generate_boundaries(3).gif

Sakko

... the EDGEX command from my plugin could yet be another solution to edge generation of 3D solids and Surfaces (ACIS)for V15.1.x...!
Just download the plugin from  
https://forum.bricsys.com/discussion/17053#17053
and run the EDGEX command

Regards

Jim Canale

@Ilya Tatarnikov:

 Hi all,

In upcoming V15.2 you can easily solve this with GENERATEBOUNDARIES command. Just hover the face with a hole and call boundary generation command from the quad.

Cool!

Jim Canale

Louis,

Belated thanks.   I have never used the selection modes toolbar before.  All the selection modes were active.  When I turned off the edges mode, I was better able to select the face of the hole, and delete it. 

By the way, what is "boundary detection"?

Jim Canale

@Joe Dunfee:

 I have sometimes had problems selecting curved surfaces.  In those cases, I can normally select it by clicking on one of the tessellation lines.

-Joe

Joe,

You're throwing some big words at me!   I looked this up, and it is controlled by the DISPSILH variable.    The variable was set to "Off".  However I turned it on, and did not see any difference in my drawing.  At least not with the type of holes I was experimenting with.

Jim Canale

Konstantin,

Thank you for your reply.   I checked out the thread you pointed me to.  There's a lot to digest in the thread!  I'm barely familiar with loading and running LISP programs, and and have done no programming of my own.  I downloaded your *.DLL,  and tried to install it.  Got an error message.  I suspect this has to do with user rights.  Our IT people have me locked down tightly.   

The message:

: NETLOAD

Loading .NET runtime v4.0.30319:

Error Message: Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Users\jimc\Desktop\SweepX-LoftX-V2.3-bc15.1.22.dll' or one of its dependencies. Operation is not supported. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131515)
; ----- LISP : Call Stack -----
; [0]...BRXLOADMANAGEDDLL <<--<br>;
; ----- Error around expression -----
(AL_EXECUTEADSDEFUN "BRXLOADMANAGEDDLL" REST)
;
; error : SDS request returned error at function : BRXLOADMANAGEDDLL
failed to load module C:\Users\jimc\Desktop\SweepX-LoftX-V2.3-bc15.1.22.dll
:
Cancel

Sakko

Hi Jim,

i think the problem is that the .dll is locked !
The problem is stated in messages #45 #46 # 47 of the plugin thread...
Just right-click and unblock (click on the Unblock Button) the downloaded   SweepX-LoftX-V2.3-bc15.1.22.dll 
I hope this helps...

Regards

UnblockDLL.jpg

Jim Canale

Konstantin,

Yes, I have it loaded!  Thank you.   Unfortunately, I am swamped with other projects and have to leave for a while.    I'll get back to you in a few days after I have had a chance to try the tool.

Joe Dunfee

@Scott McKenzie:

Joe, try setting SELECTIONMODES to 0 to see if that helps with choosing a face to delete.

I am finally getting around to looking into your suggestion.  However, I cannot find the SELECTIONMODES variable in the help file, or even at the command prompt. Perhaps you meant a different varaible?

Currently, I am doing a lot of work in a rendered view of solids.  I am using a hidden line view.  In legacy AutoCAD hidden, you cannot select faces, but only edges.  That is what I want to do.  Is there a way to turn off selection of faces?

-Joe

Scott McKenzie

 Hi Joe, are you running V15, or an older version?

Joe Dunfee

I am on version 14 Platinum.

-Joe