Too many facets

SketchUp
1

I’m importing autocad files and my cylinders have too many facets. Is there a way to reduce those within Sketch-up?

2

It would help to see a model import to understand what you are working with. Importing cad files can be problematic and often require specific options.

3

I think it comes down to how the cylinders were represented in autocad and consequently how the importer represented them in SketchUp.

Cylinders are not a basic object type in SketchUp. They consist of two parallel circles (approximated by regular polygons) with edges joining corresponding vertices on the two end circles. So, there is one facet per edge of the polygon approximation. Because of the vertex sharing, SketchUp won’t let you change the number of edges in either of the end circles. Doing so would lead to an unresolvable problem of how to reconstruct the sides when the number of vertices on the ends don’t match. So the number of sides field is grayed out in the Entity Info window where you could change the number of sides of a “free” circle.

I don’t import a lot of dwg so I don’t know for certain, but perhaps the current setting of default number of sides for a new circle in SketchUp will determine how many facets the importer uses? Otherwise I fear the only answer may be to delete the imported cylinders and redraw them in SketchUp using a smaller number of sides. Obviously, that could be quite tedious if there are a lot of them!

4

Autocad 2D circles usually come in at 72 edges…

sometimes a face comes in on top of the circle but uses the default SU number of edges [intersecting the 72]…

I believe you can set the circle display resolution in autocad, but I only ever work with other peoples dxf/dwg files or ones exported from SU…

john

5

I don’t think the SketchUp importer uses the VIEWRES setting stored in the file to determine the number of facets. The AutoCad default has for many years been 500. It is not directly related to the number of facets (VIEWRES 15 produces circles that look like octagons) but the default today is clearly more than 72.

Anssi

1 Like
6

Thank you Box, if I find an acceptable solution, I will let it fly.

7

Thank you kind Sir.

8

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