Cut expansion joints in concrete imported mesh

[mark3d]

Wondering what the right way is to cut this imported mesh so I can  give the concrete driveways and footpaths expansion joints, everything i try never seems to cut the poly it just sits on top of the poly

Formz 9 pro, The mesh if from chief architect 3ds

 

Edited May 20 by mark3d
adjustment

[Des]

One way to do it is to use the Surface Split tool in the Modify palette. Draw a solid using the wall tool set at whatever thickness for the expansion joint (say 20mm). The solid should go beyond the path in plan on both sides. Move the wall solid up/down so it fully intersects with the path surface. Then select the Surface Split tool and while it's active select the path surface and then the wall solid. It will split the surface at the intersection leaving a 20mm surface which you can then colour.

[Justin Montoya]

I like Des suggestion, if that works for you.  You may want to try the Object Doctor and Reduce Mesh tools before you do any splitting.

However, in my experience, splittling imported mesh can be a bit of a mixed bag where some parts work and others dont.  The concrete looks pretty simple, so I'd probably just draw on top of it real quick and create some nice clean smooth formZ objects.  You'd have to set them a touch taller to show for renderings, or cut out or hide the imported mesh parts.

[mark3d]

Thanks Des and Justin I will give your helpful suggestions a go

[Jim_G]

What Justin said above...unless you have some good reason for NOT doing so, I'd *strongly* recommend cleaning up/rebuilding the mesh.  Also, given the size of the expansion joints, texture-mapping them onto the surface might be a better approach than trying to build them as geometry.

[ZTEK]

Hi @mark3d, can you share that highlighted part in the red rectangle in 3DS and DWG so I can see how to deal with that Chief Architect mesh(es) in formZ 10?

[mark3d]

See if that is what you can use

part model.3ds

[mark3d]

I wont try and change the mesh I will use decals in twinmotion but thanks for the help

[ZTEK]

I didn't spend much time on it, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I checked the terrain mesh, which is the most complex and is generally ok. I only found problems in a few spots with small, non-manifold faces that are easy to correct. But I also found some issues in other meshes, such as simpler ones, which are silly problems you can quickly repair. I found some solids in the file that seem ok, like the street curbs, but I also found some no-volume ones, which are fine if you don't need to touch them.

Besides these standard topology problems, the geometry's organization seems problematic, as does the triangulation issue that the 3DS format produces.

The terrain, pavements, and hardscaping areas' meshes are superimposed, like layers, on each other. Without knowing Chief Architect, I ignore whether this is by choice or a limitation of its internal automatic system. When exporting in a format like 3DS, the geometry gets fully triangulated, which is problematic when you need to edit and work with meshes that don't intersect and cut each other with logic. Trimming them afterward could force you to deal with many small triangles, quads, and edges/loops with too many points, which is difficult, inefficient, and annoying.

A better approach might be to try the other export formats to see if you can get quad-meshes instead of triangles. Quads will give you a better option for editing the geometry in formZ if needed. If the texture mapping is lost, it's easy to redo in formZ after the geometry edits are ready.

I suppose you are using 3DS because of the texture support, and formZ is just for rendering.

I was curious about those Chief Architect meshes, and I'm sorry I can't help.