external volume 2

[hydrac]

Hi,
I am trying to turn a part made of primarily surface bodies into a solid body so that I can do a combine>subtract to find the internal volume. When I try to fill the multiple holes in the part, I cannot select "merge result" or "form solid" which creates problems with the subtract function. What would cause these options to turn on/off?

Thanks,
Gerard

 

[rollupswx]

Can you zip and attach the file here (roll up the SolidWorks feature tree first).

 

[rstupplebeen]

Are the surfaces water tight? Try knit selecting all the applicable surfaces and check the box called 'try to form solid'. If that does not work please post your model. I hope this helps.

Rob Stupplebeen

https://sites.google.com/site/robertkstupplebeen/

 

[hydrac]

Sorry, thought I forgot something. I was trying to make the part watertight by using fill to plug all the holes, but when I check the model, every fill still showed up as an open feature. knitting the part doesn't work, although I was able to thicken it.

 

[rstupplebeen]

I can not think of a good way to do this without a lot of work. I believe 2 methods could work depending on what you need to do with this in the end.

1. Hide any internal faces and then patch the remaining holes and then knit to form solid.

2. Piece by piece fill holes and then knit into individual solids. Then possibly merge into 1 solid.

I hope this helps.

Rob Stupplebeen

https://sites.google.com/site/robertkstupplebeen/

 

[Eltron]

Wherever you see a blue edge you have a surface that isn't connected to something else. Like Rob said this is going to take you a lot of work to fill all of the holes and knit all if the surfaces before you even have the option of forming a solid.

I would just block out a solid model that's approximately the same and take the volume from there...or ask whoever you got the model from to send it in another file format.

Dan

http://www.eltronresearch.com

Dan's Blog

 

[hydrac]

Thanks, that was the conclusion I had come to, I was just hoping I had missed something