I prepare a lot of “masterplan” (site plan) drawings made up of “flat” faces. Example:
I set these out in 2d, and then I use the 2d faces to generate a 3d model (e.g. by draping the faces onto a Terrain and building it up from there).
The 2d faces is the Plan that I use to generate areas and other things. So it’s best that the geometry is not grouped by material or object type. (though, in my plan example the orange and pink objects (building foundations) are grouped seperately).
Unfortunately with this workflow, I’m struggling with so many numerous co-planar faces. They pop up automatically; sometimes multiple faces in duplicated on top of each other. Sometimes there are also softened/hidden edges lurking within the auto-generated faces.
The geometry I’m dealing with isn’t apparently very complex; 40 or 50 edges and curves that aren’t too detailed. I’m careful to flatten everything so it’s perfectly flat, and has no overhanging or loose edges.
I’ve learned how to search for, clean up and delete coplanar faces using a variety of techniques (such as Xray mode and CleanUp3) however I’d like to know if there’s an extension or other method to automatically detect and delete them as soon as they emerge, or even before they emerge.
Is there a way to turn OFF SketchUp’s automatic face-creation? Maybe my process could work if I can draw the linework then use Make Faces afterwards?
Alternatively a way to Detect and avoid co-planar face creation altogether?
(why is it that a face will not create automatically if there is a tiny edge within the outer ‘loop’, but a face will create automatically if there is another face already there? …this feels like a bug).
Graphic below shows simple edge being connected, and then generating 2 more faces (white) on top of the dark grey original face:
This is very simple geometry (40 edges making up this face, no curves).