Hi all
I have been using shapr since inception. And love the progress being made with this app but although I have requested along with others a locked grouping option
This as far as I’m aware has not yet been done
And while to a degree it can be managed in layers
It’s still not optimal when duplicating an object comprising multiple bodies
So I have looked at the merge function but unfortunatly that is still not merging all the bodies within an object
So as an example let’s look at a building scaffolding assembly
I have modled each of the clamps. Which comprise of about 8 bodies
But when I try to copy and move a clamp it duplicates the bodies independently and saves them all on the same layer which gets very confusing when you get to 5 clamps or more and in reality I’m looking to do 100s of clamps
So I would like to be able to merge all the bodies of a clamp and then import it as one body
So that I can move the clamp as one piece as obviously once this component is drawn it won’t be changed
I have tried exporting it in different forms hoping that all the components would be merged in the export but this has only had moderate success
Yup tried to Boolean union the group but that’s not happening it wont union some of the components within that group and i dont understand why see attached file when you try to do a union it seems to leave out some of the components namely the grommet nuts if i could understand why it wont union these it would be a massive help thanks Lifting rig 2023 q clamp.shapr (8.7 MB)
The way it is drawn, these bodies do not intersect. They touch, but the grommet nuts are the same size (14mm dia) as the hole, and it touches only along the edge of the nut.
There is an informative message when you try to union:
If you make these nuts longer using offset face the bottom (just a little)… like make it 2.1 instead of 2.0 thick, then it will union without problem. But if you are going to fabricate this, you’d probably want to offset that face even more (like all the way down the hole?)…
Also, if you union with one of your mesh bodies, then the result will be a mesh body and you won’t be able to edit it with Shapr3d very well.
Hi bob thank you so much for the explanation.
I now also understand the chalanges with regard to the meshed body while the drawings will only be for reference building. I have found like you indicated that i can no longer use the align function on those bodies that have been changed to meshes
Are you aware of any work around with regard to a naming protocol i could use to keep all the bodies in 1 clamp together so that when i copy the clamp i dont end up with 100s of clamp sections on different planes all having the same name. A locked grouping would be ideal and has been hinted at for years. But so far not a reality yet
Any naming protocol is up to you. The only device you can use is folders. You could have all parts for a clamp in a folder, If you have hundreds of these, and copy a folder, you’ll get names like Clamp 01 (1) (1).
The names get ugly pretty quick. Just ignore the ugly name and put all of the Clamp folders into another folder, so in your main view you have one folder of Clamps. (A folder of folders). And you could have a folders for Diagonal Support Clamps, Corner Clamps, etc. With 100s of them, you probably don’t want to name them individually, so the “ugly” name may work. If there are any that are “special” as far as you are concerned, you can put them in a separate folder so you can give them special attention (and perhaps color them different if you are showing your client) As long as you keep your folders “pure”, i.e. just clamps, and you don’t have other item in it, it can work OK. You can even get a good count by looking at how many items are in your folder of folders of Clamps. That will just count the number of folders you have, which would be the number of that type of clamp.
