I am trying to run an architectural model in Autodesk CFD to analyse wind flow. I didn’t know much about the requirements and initially ran into issues trying to get the surface wrap to be made in the software, which is when I became aware of the need to make the model solid and watertight.
I used solid inspector and clean up and fixed the issues as much as I was able to but I am still currently sitting at almost 3000 issues which it tells me needs to be fixed manually. I really don’t think I’ll be able to do this manually and wan to avoid having to make it again, does anyone know what I could do?
In order for a group or component to be identified as solid, every edge must be shared by exactly 2 faces, no fewer and no more. Also every face must be correctly oriented. You have a number of exposed back faces. Here they are shown in green.
Explode the group and make groups of each building or other structure. That’ll reduce what Solid Inspector 2 needs to look at when you run it for each object. Here’s a section through your fire pit. There’s no bottom in the center. The edges of that central face are shared by 3 faces, not the required two.
I think I managed to amend the faces issue by removing materials and reversing faces which appeared blue rather than grey.
I am, however running into more issues when inspecting the buildings separately. For example, some buildings grouped together are giving me the same issue of many edges which can’t be fixed automatically.
Additionally multiple buildings require me to fix internal and external edges, which just ends up basically erasing the entire building.
It won’t let me send any images since I’m a new user.
Is there any way to amend this or is the only option to remodel it again?
Yes. They would. I changed the back face color to make them easier to see for the screenshot.
Frankly, your model is poorly created and you can’t expect Solid Inspector to fix it automatically.
Here’s another section view. Note that the windows are single faceslike the bottom of your fire pit. And there are all sorts of internal faces in the walls.
There’s no way for the extension to know which faces need to be kept and which should be deleted.
Yes. Because the model is so badly created.
You could go through and fix the model but there’s so much wrong with it I expect it would be faster to start over and model it correctly. Before you do that learn to use SketchUp. Go through the tutorials at learn.sketchup.com
I must admit I’m very confused by the situation, as I have no idea how I’ve managed to mess up the model this much. Possibly because components like windows were made with plugins and the walls were imported from an AutoCAD file?
Regardless, it seems like it would just be easier to remake the model. Was initially planning on using AutoCAD plans to make it again but in hindsight I’m worried I’ll end up with the same issue.
Do you happen to have any recommendations to replicate the model as efficiently as possible (it would not need as much detail but I would like to retain internal walls and spaces for windows)?
One thing that I find useful is to think about the way the thing would get printed with an FDM printer. Start at the first layer and work up for the most part. Don’t draw in features before they would appear in the print. Your firepit, for example: Don’t outline the interior wall until the bottom is extruded.
If you want to keep your internal walls, fine. But don’t create the internal faces like you have in the current version of the model. Also features like the window frames which are basically just edges drawn on the faces are pointless since they won’t print anyway and they can lead to the creation of internal faces.
BTW, the gutter detail on the building is probably a waste of time. In your model it’s less than 1.5 mm thick. I presume you aren’t going to print this model at the full size of your model. The building in my last screenshot is over 10 meters wide. If you scale the building down so it’ll fit on the print bed, the gutter will be too thin to print.
I would suggest turning off Length Snapping in the model Units and increasing Display Precision. Length Snapping can lead to errors and the coarse display precision can mask dimensional errors.
I expect you’ll want to print these buildings and things one at a time so create the separate objects instead of massing everything together ina single group as you did.
