Hello all,
I’m new to SketchUp, and I’m slowly getting to grips with it but I’m really struggling with surface border errors on a sketch I’m working on. I get that the model must be watertight, but I’m obviously missing something, because although it looks watertight to me, Solid Inspector is telling me otherwise.
I’m probably overlooking something stupid. Can anyone point me to what I’m doing wrong?
I’ve attached the .skp
Thanks in advance.
Camera Body v1.3.1.skp (755.9 KB)
The first problem is you are working at a small scale. SketchUp has problems creating very tiny faces. Those little faces can exist but they need to be created at a larger size. I would guess you are modeling this for 3D printing. Instead of modeling in millimeters, model in meters. After you’ve completed the model, you will export an STL file. They are unitless so when you import the file into the slicer software, you tell it the units are millimeters and you’re all set.
Surface borders are indicated when an edge is not shared between two faces. In order for the component/group to be considered solid, every edge must be shared by exactly two faces. No more, no less.
Your surface borders in this case are the circles shown selected. Are those circles supposed to be extruded into holes that exit the back of the case?
The short answer, explode the two cylinder groups, then group all of it and it is a solid.
Thanks for the reply,
I am indeed working at a very small scale. I didn’t realise it would make a difference. Thanks for that tip.
The circles indicated are (supposed to be) extruded to the rear of the case. I have more work to do on it yet but decided to simply extrude them to a point and work on the rest later.
The 2 holes extruded from the back intersect with the multiple holes at the front. It’s as it is supposed to look, but obviously something isn’t right.
Thanks for that, Box. I’ll give it a try. If it’s that simple, I could have saved a lot of hair.
Well, that worked!
Thanks all, I’ve just discovered the explode feature!
I guess it’s too late but here’s my revised version.
Camera Body v1.3.1.skp (866.0 KB)
Thanks, Dave. I’ll have a look at it shortly. I just need to go out and buy something alcoholic to celebrate with first.
I’ve been struggling with that for 3 days! I guess I should have RTFM.
That’s much, much cleaner, Dave. Thank you!
Do you mind me asking how you smoothed the surfaces?
I guess I have a lot of learning to do.
After scaling the model up, I selected all of the geometry (triple click on it with the Select Tool), then right clicked on it and selected Soften/Smooth.
Thanks, Dave, appreciated.
And you, Box.
