On a project I’ve received a massive 3D structure that originated in Revit which I imported successfully into SU2021 from a .dwg.
There are a number of almost semi-circular spiralling ramps (concrete slabs 300mm thick). They were imported as components, and each one is on average 32,000 entities, which is bad news. So I’ve been pairing back the geometry with the following steps:
Explode the component and remove all of the upper level geometry, i.e. leaving only the 2D curved and elevated outline plus face polys.
Remove all the face geometry between the outline curves and ramp ends
Select all the outline curves and attempt to ‘weld’. This stage is not vital, but it does flag up any imperfections in the curves, if welding fails - which it does in this case.
Inspect all the edges for ‘dirty’ edges using ‘Edge Inspector’ and erase any faults
Select all edges, run Sandbox From Contours and then ‘Joint Push Pull’ to 300mm
I’m throwing this out there to see if anyone has a proven more efficient workflow for this, or even a nifty extension idea. I use a lot of extensions generally, but have not found the right recipe for this task - but I may be overlooking something.
There are over 50 similar but different ramps in the project; the first one took me a far too long to clean up sufficiently, so I am keen to improve the time spend on each one.
You could try a polyreducing extension like Skimp.
Were the files exported from Revit as solids or meshes? Either approach might result in an overly dense mesh. You could also try the IFC format as the go-between. If I had to deal with an AutoCad solid with curves I might perhaps try opening it in Rhino, converting it to mesh and using Rhino’s built-in polyreducer prior to exporting a SketchUp file. Just ideas.
Is there an example DWG file you could post?
Check if there are any identical parts between all the different ramps that could be components.
Are you using TT Cleanup3? That could help in some steps.
Check if Curvilfoft works. It might give better geometry than Sandbox-- no need if you like what you are getting.
If you actually need to reduce the facets of the curves, Curvizard or Bezier Curve plugins might help (could be time consuming though, depending on your experience).
The items from Revit are all solids. I didn’t post the DWG because it is 360MB+ and would need a lot of ACAD fiddling to pair it back.
I used to use Rhino a lot, but don’t have it anymore, otherwise your tip would have been useful.
The attached SU file is an example of an original ramp and 2 iterations I’ve gone through as a second attempt. Certainly a bit quicker this time, but arduous!! Cleaning up and removing the inside curve geometry after using Sandbox, is time consuming.
sadly no identical parts, although they came out of Revit as components, they are all unique. So I have exploded the components and made them larger groups instead i.e. a combination of what was 3 components in one ramp before.
Yep, I’m using Cleanup3, but that tended to remove most of the geometry I wanted to keep, so I’ve resorted to simply selecting the whole of the base faces and borders, then Select Only - Borders, making a copy of just the border, then use Curvizard to check and weld the border, and then Sandbox. It is time consuming, as you say, because there is a lot of excess geometry to identify and remove first before using Joint Push Pull.
But I will see if Curviloft makes any difference on the next ramp.