Dynamic UCS

Ian Johnson
edited June 2020 in 3D Modeling

I have a 3D drawing created from a Navisworks file that is made up of Polyface meshes.

I am trying to add some elements to this model and am finding that the DUCS does not align with the face of a polyface mesh. If I explode the Poly mesh into faces it works but I dont want to have do that.

Any tips, or are polyface meshes something that DUCS does not recognize?

thx

Comments

  • Ian Johnson
    edited June 2020

    Yes Roy, that was the first thing I tried.
    Unfortunately unless the polyface mesh shapes are perfect it doesn't work and to make it all into a solid model using explode/region/dmstitch is far too time consuming plus the file is already large. Also the most of the converted solid faces become triangulated which is annoying (Microstation does a far better job of solid conversion although it still gives triangulated faces on the solids).
    Another trick that works is to import a dwg file into Sketchup and export as IFC, then import into the IFC into Bricscad and it will become solids. This only works for small files and again all faces are triangulated. (Small correction here: solid faces are not triangulated, it does import most entities as solids and works reasonably well).

    For this exercise I want to leave the model as a mesh model which brings me back the the problem.
    Both DUCS and BIMSECTION do not recognize poly mesh face and I am wondering if there is a solution? It would also be handy if a section plane put a 'cut face' on a polyface mesh as it does when a solid is sectioned.
    thx

  • Better mesh handling is definitely needed, but dynamic UCS on mesh faces is problematic by definition: since faces can have 4 vertices that do not need to be coplanar, a quad-face does not necessarily define a workplane. I guess adding a shortcut for the 3-point option of the UCS-command is all you can do to speed up your workflow.

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