How do I turn an object that's polyface into a solid 3D object so it can be sliced?

[maxerr]

Hello,

 

My name is Max, and Im new to the forum.

 

I am currently interning in the engineering offices of a steel fabricator and get thrown drawings by out of house detailers that dont always make sense.

 

Here is an example of a truss system (from an outside detailer) that I am trying to provide cut sections for in a 3D model, so we can easily see the conflicts that have occured betweeen some of the other hanging systems and the trusses. Inside the box is what I want to see.

 

Ive been looking through the forums and it seems to be a common problem of not having a "solid" to slice, but I have not found a way to easily create a "solid" from my existing drawings. I have asked a couple of the detailers here about how to cut these sections and we went through the camera function, slice (w/o "solid" - which made some hairs fall out), trim; Ive also tried creating a plain and trimming/slicing, extruded lines and shapes, but no solutions have been found.

 

What I want to know is if there is an easier way to create these cut sections without exploding the whole thing, as this method would in my opinion be a disaster to work with.

 

We have several versions of AutoCAD here, well mostly '05 and '09, and it seems to be the same on both.

 

Thanks,

Max

Drawing2.dwg

[maxerr]

never mind, i moved on from trying to be fancy after wasting alot of time. my computer was giving out way too much trouble and my version of CAD ('05) doesnt even have some of the functions supposedly needed for what i wanted to do.

 

thanks,

max

[ReMark]

I think you were doomed from the beginning when the objects were created with a polyface.