Hello,
I am new at Sketchup and I need to create a pavilion for school. The file contains the roof and one of the columns I’m planning to use. I need to use the subtract tool to trim off the pointy bits of the column, but when I try to it says that neither of them are a solid. I used the Follow Me tool to create the column and Fredo6’s curviloft plugin to create the roof, could these be what is wrong with it?
Any help is appreciated and a file with the two components I’m having trouble with is attached below.
Sketchup Help.skp (741.5 KB)
Stray edges are self explanatory, surface boarders indicates holes or flags, and nested instances means you’ve got groups/components inside other groups/components.
You should get Solid Inspector 2 from the Extension Warehouse.
You should also get familiar with the Outliner. It’ll show you the structure. It shows, for example, that some parts of the roof are made into groups on their own. there’s no need for that here. Explode those groups leaving just the larger group.
Oh wow thanks for being so quick!
Solid inspector 2 is really helpful thank you so much.
Hi Dave,
I’m having a bit of trouble with getting the roof element to become a solid. I ran the Solid Inspector, and it says I have surface borders and internal face edges. How do I get rid of these? Also, I’m a bit confused on why the columns element is highlighted in red while it is supposedly error-free. Thank you!
Solid Inspector fixed the support.
How did you draw the roof? It is poorly constructed with a lot of unneeded edges and divisions besides being divided into some groups and some loose geometry. I cleaned it up and redrew it. I kept your curves although they could be drawn better, too.
Sketchup Help.skp (228.3 KB)
Hi Dave,
I used Fredo6’s curviloft tool to construct it, and the curves were imported from Autocad, where I drew them with the spline tool. What methods do you recommend to do it?
Hmmm… I used Curviloft to create the upper and lower surfaces but I drew the long sides manually.
As for the curves, I’d have drawn them in SketchUp, too. Your upper curve on the near end has a bump in it.
A couple of things you need to do with Curviloft is make sure that faces are oriented correctly (don’t be applying materials until you have them oriented correctly) and explode the groups so the geometry is all connected.
Thanks so much for your help!
This was for my school science project and so this is my first time using Sketchup 
You’re welcome.
You’d better do it yourself. Don’t use my file. That’d be cheating. 
I tested your file in my SolidSolver - with the groups nested inside one.
It fixed it into a solid in a second.
But as @DaveR said - learn to make it solid manually !
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