Making object solid

Hi everyone,

I am having trouble creating a solid object out of my components which when together are a spiral ramp (ellipse in shape).

I have imported this geometry from revit and it seems to have come in a million peices but i can not find a way to join all or re draw in a way to create a Solid.

i cant load any plugins like solid inspector etc.
I can not find any internal geometry in need of deleting; however, as mentioned above the surfaces appear as one when selected however due to the curved nature are made up of tiny triangular geometries with many edges.

Is anyone able to assist? or has an easy fix/ way around it?

I need to get this 3D printed and hence need a watertight solid object.
**first timer

Thankyou in advance

3d print file.skp (1.4 MB)

There are a lot of reasons why that’s not watertight. You should get Solid Inspector 2 from the Extension Warehouse and let it help you identify the problems.

How critical are the dimensions?

Hi Dave,

hmm i see…
dimensions are critical unfortunately.
Ive heard that is helpful however I am having trouble accessing any extensions as I am having issues with access to my trimble account.

Can you get to the Extension Warehouse through your Internet browser and download it (and TT_Lib from there?

How critical are the dimensions? You have precision set rather coarse for critical dimensions.

yes i am able to download this way but unsure how to run/activate once the file is on the PC.

Sorry i dont follow TT_Lib
I am a rookie my apologies.

I need an ellipse form 157mm in length by 76mm in width. I have imported this file so im not sure how the dimensions should / are set.

TT-Lib is a set of support files for extensions like Solid Inspector2. After you download the files go to Window>Extension Manager and click on Install Extension. Navigate to where you saved the download files and click Open. Repeat for the other file, too. Then Quit SketchUp and restart it. You should find a toolbar button for Solid Inspector.

Just as an aside, have you tried the free Revit to STL export add-on (to Revit) that Autodesk has published?

okay awesome thankyou, i now have that toolbar.

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I have not! do you think this is a better option?

I haven’t tried it (have no ongoing Revit project at the moment) but I just wonder if it could save you all this trouble going through other applications just to get an STL file to 3D print.

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would this mean that if i convert to Stl it would be/act as a “solid” @DaveR

Maybe. Does SketchUp show as solids in Entity Info. I expect it won’t be.

I did a quickie version of your model that is solid. I think it could be made to look better but it would be helpful to know exactly what dimensions you really need.

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WOW

this is great thankyou!
How did you do this exactly? i thought the follow me tool would come in handy but i couldn’t figure it out.

dimensions:

basic ellipse: 157mm x 76mm
width of ‘path’ : ~20mm
height of path : ~5mm
height of entire structure: ~120mm
with ff to ff ceiling (ramp to ramp spacing): 28mm

…and no it does not currently show as solids.

Follow Me will probably not do what you want. I drew a helix using the Helix tool in the Curve Maker extension and then I scaled it to make it elliptical. I then drew the end section of the ramp and used Eneroth Upright Extruder to make the ramp. This create a solid component which I Unioned withthe eliptical base using the Union tool in Eneroth Solid Tools. This isn’t really that simple if you are a newbie to SketchUp. Not difficult but you have to learn to use the tools first. The other thing I did to avoid potential issues with very tiny geometry is I modeled as if millimeters were meters.

Let me see if I can get better results with your given dimensions.

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okay, this is great advice and very in depth i really appreciate it.

wow that would be beyond amazing thanks so much!

@nd try looks better but currently too tall. Do I have too many turns in it?

Looks good!

I think maybe half a turn too tall ? Honestly the rotations aren’t too much of an issue as it’s height and widths that needs accuracy in order to fit as an insertion into a physical model

Can you set the import units in the slicer software for the .stl file?

If you can, this .stl ought to work reasonably well. Set import units to mm.

3d print file.stl (262.1 KB)

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@DaveR thankyou so much this looks great i really appreciate it.

Would you happen to still have the SKP. file? i believe in its current state it is slightly too wide at 97mm
I think I could just scale the edges in 20mm to reach 76mm in depth.

That would be a good learning experience for you.
Import the stl into sketchup, then scale it to the size you want and export it again as an stl.

The scale tool allows you to scale to a specific dimension by adding the unit when you scale it.

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