Converting Planer Surface to Polyface Mesh

K_Lecky1
K_Lecky1
in 2D Drafting

Is it possible to convert a Planer Surface to Polyface Mesh?

We use machine control and for surfaces they can read a Polyface Mesh, which leaves life a lot easier for the excavator drivers.

For the likes of doing foundation dig levels, there are steps in the 'surface', so it's easier for me to draw the outline of each part and then 'CONVTOSURFACE'. This will change it to a Planer Surface which the machine cannot read.

My work around for now it to create a tin surface, then save the file as a .dxf (for the excavators and total stations), open it again and explode the tin surfaces as they automatically block to Proxy Entities. This then leaves them as Polyface Meshes… But this is slow and tedious as I have to do each part individually or do them all at once and then delete breaklines that are incorrect, so I was wondering if there's a quick and simple way to convert Planer Surfaces to Polyface Meshs.

Thanks in advance.

Comments

  • Virgil
    Virgil

    Hello.

    There is no specific command to triangularize a surface.
    This would be the first step when converting it to a polyface mesh.

    Using a TIN surface as an intermediary structure is, indeed, a solution.

    Something useful could be like this:

    • Use the XEDGES command and extract the edges of the surface.
    • Keep only the contour edges and delete the others.
    • Join the outer edges into a closed polyline.
    • Use the TIN command with the option "create from cOntours" and select the polyline.
    • You could experiment with the other TIN options - weed factors and supplementing factors.
      Use No for simplification.
    • Once the TIN surface is created, explode it twice - the result will be a polyface mesh.
      (The second explode is for the block that results after the first explode.)

  • ALANH
    ALANH

    Having done models for 3D Machine Control, been a few years now, but we only needed to convert the TIN surface to 3DFACES, that was an option in CIV3D, So no need for polyface mesh. I don't know if there is a convert a TIN to 3Dfaces in Bricscad Civil. There should be say lisp code to do it otherwise.

    I used Civil Site Design can run in Bricscad, to make our design surfaces.