On making holes and reducing the number of surfaces.

[jleslie]

I made a rectangular hole through a rectangular object. I now want to collapse all the little triangles that are formed into a single surface by selecting surface, and then using the Surface->combine feature. All is well for all but the last two surfaces int he plane. when I combine those two surfaces it looks like the 2 surfaces are erased and the interior portion of the two surfaces becomes a new surface. This is not what I wanted. Can someone explain what is happening and how to work around it?

[Andy]

The combine function is doing its best but it's not possible to have a single surface which includes the hole. (well, it might be possible to duplicate the shape with a single polygon with duplicate vertices but it's not advisable)

The minimum you can have is two surfaces for that shape. Perhaps a rectangle and a 'C' shape for the top section, but anything similar that makes the shape with two surfaces will be OK - I'd leave it as what you have.

Nice model!

[jleslie]

Originally Posted by Andy

The combine function is doing its best but it's not possible to have a single surface which includes the hole. (well, it might be possible to duplicate the shape with a single polygon with duplicate vertices but it's not advisable)

The minimum you can have is two surfaces for that shape. Perhaps a rectangle and a 'C' shape for the top section, but anything similar that makes the shape with two surfaces will be OK - I'd leave it as what you have.

Nice model!

Ok, I just wasn't sure if I was doing something wrong. AC3D is wonderful for paper models (this truck unfolds to flat paper so you can build it.) AC3D has true polygons instead of just lots of triangles and that really helps the unfolding process. That's why I wanted the "door" of the truck to be one surface.