Creating a complex shape to extrude?

[bbudding]

Hi,

I am having trouble extruding complex shapes. For example a 2-D design made up of lots of lines. I have made sure they all join together. I have tried re-drawing then as a polyline, grouping them, making them into a block.

 

Can anyone help?

[ReMark]

Post an image and we'll take a look.

 

What are you trying to construct?

[Patrick Hughes]

Making them into a block will not help nor will grouping them. You must turn them into a closed polyline. Make certain when you are attempting to join segments into the polyline they are actually being added to the polyline. If some of the segments are arcs you must make certain that the extrusion vector matches your current UCS or they may not add (perform a "list" command on suspect objects).

 

Overlapping lines are a trouble spot as well as trying to create a self intersecting Pline.

 

Gaps are also trouble.

[bbudding]

To be honest I haven't managed to post an image because it's asking me to use a URL to loacte it?!

 

I have simply drawn a few lines, all connected together, no gaps, I have snapped all the ends together. I woudl now like to extrude it. But I can't... I'm having to make everything out of standard shapes which is time consuming.

 

Thanks again guys,

 

Ben

[ReMark]

Go to the FAQ section of CADTutor and click on the topic Reading and Posting Messages. There are instructions on how to post an image. Basically you are going to upload it to this website and then attach it to your post.

[ReMark]

Look at the image below. Starting on the far left is our basic shape. It is constructed entirely of lines. This shape was copied twice to the right. The center object shows you what happens when "lines" are extruded. The object to the far right shows you what happens when we use the polyline edit command (Pedit) to join the lines into one continuous entity, a "polyline", and then extrude it.

 

[skipsophrenic]

if all your lines are connected properly, you could try using the REGION command.

 

But again this only works if all the endpoints match-up, if not then it will not create the region for you to extrude, this has the same effect as ReMarks polyline as posted above.

[bbudding]

Well done chaps. Both techniques work. Thank you.

 

(and to think I earn a living as a CAD operator -- **shhhhh**)

[ReMark]

If you don't tell we won't either.

 

You're welcomed. Glad our combined assistance got you straightened out.

[skipsophrenic]

(and to think I earn a living as a CAD operator -- **shhhhh**)

 

Your secret's safe

 

Don't worry though, it's said that you never stop learning with AutoCAD

 

I think it was ReMark who said that somewhere