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How do i seperate elements after subtracting?


123kika321

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Hi,

 

I am new to CADTutor, I joined as I need help with a model I am working on. I cope pretty well with AutoCAD though I have tried to find a solution to this problem so many times that i gave up and thought id ask myself.

 

I am working on an interior of a space and its all built up in 3D though the space has got arched roofing, i created that by subtracting cylinders from a rectangle, no problem. Though, i then placed the roof above the whole space and went to subtract all elements i have which needed to take the arched form and subtracted the roof from them, it worked fine though now all 57 elements which i subtracted the roof from are recognized as one whole element and I need to work on individual bits of these.

 

If i explode the elements themselves seem to no longer remain as solids but convert to faces. Does anyone know how i can simply separate them but keep them as solids?

 

Thank you!!

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Depends on how you did it but solidedit separate might be one solution (I suspect will not work on your problem as this is for disjointed solids). Perhaps Split with plane or surface.

 

Do not Explode.

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Autocad will union separate elements when you select multiple solids for subtraction as you have found. Unfortunately the defining geometry is also gone so "SEPARATE" probably wont work either.

 

You will either have to do the subtraction separately for each or what I would do is use a surface and slice them which would keep them separate.

 

KC

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sold edit, separate seems to not be doing anything so guess its not the solution, if there even is any. I have already done the subtraction and cant go back now as have saved and re-opened since. I am going to import the file into 3D Stdio Max so i guess i will just detach the elements individually from there. Thank you for your help though!! next time i will subtract them indiviudally :)

 

Thanks again!!!

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i think i have too many elements to do that, i cant quite figure out how it would work for me and it is hard to explain to you as i have alot going on in the space. its a silly mistake i could have avoided really, i did not think about it before i did the subtraction. the slice command doesnt give me the outcome i need though thank you for your help, ill remember it for next time :)

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If I were you, I'd restore a BAK or autosave file that still has the parts in there, and bring-in what you can. (or UNDO like crazy, if you can)

 

SUBTRACT has the side-effect of unioning together anything you subtract from. So, to do this properly, you'd need to make multiple copies of the subtraction entity, and perform the subtraction on each item individually.

 

IF THE ITEMS DON'T TOUCH EACH OTHER, you can do those at the same time and then in the Solidedit command, you can choose "separate" to "de-unionize" objects that don't touch each other.

 

The only other separation method I know of is to "SLICE" the items, but it uses a single cutting plane to do it with, which is often a "long way" to handle it.

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Thanks, its true these sound like the best options though i had to move on from solving the problem as it was taking me too long to solve when i could just work around it in 3DS, i have way too many items to subtract seperately i managed to seperate a few items and to be honest i think it was the solid edit seperate, but there are so many items united that its even cuasing the file to slow down, so i just stopped playing around with it now and moved in to 3DS to deal with the next batch of the infinite problems!! hehe

 

Thanks all of you so very much!!

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

this is one way i have learned to "de-union"/"un-union" solids that have been merged together.

First i use ctrl to get the solid history.

I then select the original solid that i want to work with (it is now a subobject)

I move it away from my model a known distance.

I then use SLICE and place a slice plane that goes through the empty space between my model and the solid i wanted to de-union.

I then move the object that i just pulled out back to its original position

By doing this i dont have to do a ton of slicing to my unionized solid and i get the olriginal shape back

This only works one subobject at a time though. Say you unionized 57 pieces on accident with the subtract tool and you wanted to un-unionize them all you'd have to go through my posted process all 57 times.

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this is one way i have learned to "de-union"/"un-union" solids that have been merged together.

First i use ctrl to get the solid history.

I then select the original solid that i want to work with (it is now a subobject)

I move it away from my model a known distance.

I then use SLICE and place a slice plane that goes through the empty space between my model and the solid i wanted to de-union.

I then move the object that i just pulled out back to its original position

By doing this i dont have to do a ton of slicing to my unionized solid and i get the olriginal shape back

This only works one subobject at a time though. Say you unionized 57 pieces on accident with the subtract tool and you wanted to un-unionize them all you'd have to go through my posted process all 57 times.

 

IF THE ITEMS DON'T TOUCH EACH OTHER, you can do those at the same time and then in the Solidedit command, you can choose "separate" to "de-unionize" objects that don't touch each other.

 

The only other separation method I know of is to "SLICE" the items, but it uses a single cutting plane to do it with, which is often a "long way" to handle it.

 

Just thought I'd point out that if they aren't touching, that separate command would do all 57 "slices" at once.

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Just thought I'd point out that if they aren't touching, that separate command would do all 57 "slices" at once.

 

yes but you'd have to move almost all the pieces at different known lengths for each one and/or directions before you separated. It may then be difficult to remember how everything goes back together.

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