I’ve come across a problem, which I don’t seem to be able to solve by myself. I’ve recently done a honeycomb-inspired design (not created by me, but I’ve been modeling it for a while). After having it done, I decided to insert a cylinder, passing through it, in order to make it have a cylindrical shape, which is something I desire. The problem with that, is that, after having done it, some faces disappeared, some new inconvenient-to-work-with shapes appeared, and some other issues, which I believe I’ve already fixed (for the most part). My main problem, now, seems to be having it become solid: I have used Solid Inspector (which allowed for me to close all gaps, I think - even though I have come across some hidden missing faces that weren’t noted with Solid Inspector), however, even after having done so, the group has not yet been considered a solid (Solid Inspector mentions all is shiny and clear, though). I believe it may have something to do with the faces (reversed, external, and so on), but I’m unable to find a solution, and I have resigned myself to the idea that I’ll never be able to do this if I have no assistance.
So that’s, generally speaking, my problem, and I wish some of you could help me find a solution.
I’ll be sending, in a .skp format, my project, so as to facilitate anyone who’d like to help me out. Honeycomb.skp (2.3 MB)
Do you still have a copy of the object before you chopped it with the cylinder?
Firstly, It is still too small to work with properly!
All the random triangles you have used to mend holes is the wrong way to go about it. Turn on hidden geometry and join the dots, simple long edges from point to point will close the holes smoothly.
But If you had scaled up before trying to intersect it with the cylinder you probably wouldn’t have needed to repair those faces to begin with.
As it stands it is quite some considerable work to repair and make into a solid, it is possible but time consuming.
If you have the original and it doesn’t have all those random triangles, use the Dave Method and try again.
You can do not need to change the size of your component to be able to work on it. Click on the link for the Dave Method in @Box s reply. In a nutshell, you will be editing a scaled up copy of the component that avoids the tiny face limitation while leaving the original in place.
I’m at a bit of a loss for what to say about your model, but I’ll give it a go.
What on earth is going on with all the nesting, you have a tree structure in outliner that goes on forever.
Your basic structure is inaccurate, the green is where it is and the red is where it should be to be straight.
Also all the multiple groups overlap somewhat randomly making it nearly impossible to combine them to form one solid.
I took a slice through the structure that I could then edit and make one flat profile.
This can then be Push/Pulled to form one solid.
Then with the cylinder in place, didn’t seem very accurate placement but that was where it was, I made it into a component.
Then made a copy of the component and scaled that copy up by 1000.
Once scaled up I reset the number of segments in the circle to 180, this seemed to give a result that worked, less either failed or looked ugly, more was just creating more issues.(I chose 180 because you has 150 and once you have gone that many I felt it might work better at 1 segment per 2deg of the circle.)
Having done all that I intersected the cylinder with the structure and with much fiddling and correcting and forcing edges to join correctly I was able to produce the shape you want as a solid.
And the original component took all the edits done to the big one.
Once the large one is deleted you are left with the small one intact.
Until such time as you try to save it or copy it into another file, Sketchup wants to Fix it and if you let it it will get holes in it.
This would appear to be one of those cases where the edges as so tiny that not only are they difficult to create they are difficult to keep.
So here is the resultant model, not sure it is any use tho. HoneyBox.skp (604.2 KB)
First of all, I must apologize for how displeasing my work is: not only do I recognize how unprofessional I am at it, I also realize how badly done my attempts at doing what I wish are. I even feel bad.
Second of all, I thank you, again, for the cooperation. I do have several questions: what edges would you be referring to, when mentioning that they’re too tiny? Would there be a way to solve that issue?
Also, it appears that it is not possible to Export it into an .STL format, which I’d assume is due to how “unstable” the whole model construction is, so to speak. Is there any way to do so, and still keep the integrity of the model?
Once more, I thank you so much for the assistance, and I apologize for my incompetence.
There’s no need to appologise or feel bad, we all had to start somewhere.
One of the benefits of .stl is that they are basically unit-less, you can tell them what you want them to be.
Have a look at this, it is the model I did scaled up by 100, exported as meters.
See how it opens on your .stl software. HoneycombpipedeBox.stl (2.9 MB)
I did exactly what you told me and the results revealed themselves to be profitable! Thank you! It appears that scaling it up greatly influences the way the faces behave (don’t know why they should, but I guess they just do). Also, by using the Smooth tool, I was able to remove the useless lines, allowing me to identify certain parts that were very hard to detect before.
I can safely say that my problem has been solved, and I have you to thank for.
