SU Overlapping Detection

[Aaron Beaver]

Is there a way to tell if you have overlapping pieces in SU? Didn't know if there was some type of "collision" detection or something.

[Dave Richards]

There isn't any collision detection in SU. You can tell if two surfaces are overlapping in the same plane by a sort of shimmering effect as you orbit. You'll also see the surface appearing to be broken.

Otherwise, you'd have to orbit around and take a look. Is there a specific instance where you need to know this but aren't able to discern it easily?

[Aaron Beaver]

Dave, thaks for the tips. There is not a certain instance, I was mostly curious if I could catch it. Say I draw a project in SU and it looks fine, so I copy it and make an explode view, then I roate the parts in the same plane and dimension an print them out. I will build the pieces to what I have dimensioned but if something is overlapping that I didn't catch it will come out wrong.

Once dimensioned it might be easy to catch on a simple project if something doesn't seem right, but some of the more complicated ones or ones with a lot of pieces might be harder to notice because the dimensions could look correct.

It was just a thought that crossed my mind as something that could happen so I wanted to see if you could see it in SU.

[Dave Richards]

As far as making parts for a project goes, make sure you group or componentize (I made up that word. ;) ) of each piece as you create it. This will prevent you from having part of one piece stuck to another and will eliminate any problems that way.

[Aaron Beaver]

I usually make components but even then you can have two pieces intersecting that shouldn't be I think. I will have to look....picutre attached is obviously a collision and both are seperate components. I was looking for a way to see if SU had a way to point this out.

[Dave Richards]

Oh, I see what you are referring to. I think the easiest way to tell is the lack of a black line at the intersection.

In the attached note the left boxes are like yours. The second ones are after Intersect with Model. The third shows what you have after deleting the smaller box and the fourth shows the result after removing line segment along the bottom edge. This is a good way to cut joinery. For example you could draw a tenon on a rail and slide it into place against a leg (or draw the leg in place ) and use Intersect with Model to create the mortise in the leg.

[Brian Triplett]

Maybe, trying to put the project back together with the components after dimensioning the parts will help find these situations? Just a thought.