Subtracting from 3D Solid

[Larry_Sweeney]

I don't know if this subject has been brought up before, but this is the first time I've noticed the "problem". This is a very simple plan. I'm subtracting "A" solid from "B" solid (Plan View). Render 1 shows the two pieces before subtraction. Notice nice smooth bullnose edge on "B". After subtracting "A" from "B" notice the roughness of the bullnose on "B" (attachments "Render 2 & Plan View 2). I went back to X14 and had the same results, but when I went back to X13 everything looked as it should on the subtracted bullnose piece. I either never noticed this occurring in X14 or X15 before or is this a bug and has been around for two verisions and mentioned before since in X13 the subtraction works correctly. Just one other thing I noticed and I'm questioning, with such a simple plan does anyone know why it is so large in size? (8 mb)

SUBTRACT TEST.zip

[Alaskan_Son]

Easy to reproduce.  Definitely seems to be an issue with Chief's handling of arcs that are part of solids in newer versions.  In fact, you can create a similar object in X13 using the aforementioned boolean operations (finished object looks fine), save the plan, open in X15, and without making any changes, bullnose edge is wonky.   For now, I would suggest converting that arc to a multiple segment polyline.  Oh, and please report to tech support so it gets fixed.

[RodCole]

I have experienced the same issues as Michael when using round tubing for exterior handrails.  I ended up importing solids that I made up in another 3D program.  My bad, I had it on my list of things to report but did not report it at the time.  I will follow up now.  Thanks for reminding me.

[Larry_Sweeney]

I sent this in to support this morning. I'll put the response on here when I hear back from support. Have a great day.

[Larry_Sweeney]

This is what support had to say.

SUPPORT..........Thanks for sending this in, Larry. I'll definitely report this to our developers to look into.
Pre-X14 we had both "Polyline Solids" and "Solids" - often times Polyline Solids had to be converted to Solids in order for the Boolean operations to complete well. These objects were combined into "3d Solids" in X14 so it makes sense the behavior may have changed at that time.
What's happening though--or, at least the cause of the issue--is that the Subtraction is causing problems with the geometry of the curved edge of the 3D Solid. When I slid block A slightly to the left so that it only intersected with the squared section of the bullnose, and not the curved edge, it worked fine. This isn't tremendously surprising to me since doing complex cuts with curved surfaces adds a lot more complexity to the operation.

What I would recommend is to try to avoid using Boolean operations on objects that contain Arc segments. Of course, sometimes you need curves, like with a bullnose molding! So, selecting object B by its Side edge, you can select the Arc segment, then in the Edit Toolbar press the Convert to Polyline button, breaking the curve into a segmented polyline of a pre-assigned number of new sides. The default is 6 but that can be pretty chunky depending on the angle of the arc. I bumped it up to 12 to smooth it out.

I hope this helps,

MY REPLY.........Is this a "temporary" solution and is it going to be corrected in the future or are "us users" just have to deal with it. The object I was working with was quite simple, but something more complicated will, I think, be much more difficult to deal with.

SUPPORT.........We tend not to treat any issue as something that users will just have to "deal with." I suppose in my initial reply I should have said "What I recommend *for the time being*--".

As for if/when it will be resolved, like many issues the best answer we can give is a diplomatic one; I've submitted this issue to our developers and they will have to look into the cause and prioritize how important it is to fix--that is not to say, "should it be fixed?", but rather "how soon?" Please know that every single issue reported to us are given attention; addressing them, however, is a matter of prioritization and resource allocation. I'd love to be able to say that given the nature of this issue it should make sense to give it higher priority and we'll have it fixed in the next update, however even trying to give you an educated guess may end up being a disservice to you if it circumstantially doesn't get resolved in what either you or I might consider a reasonable timeframe.

We'll just have to wait and see when this gets addressed--hopefully it's very soon!

[TeaTime]

On 4/29/2023 at 5:21 PM, Alaskan_Son said:

Easy to reproduce.  Definitely seems to be an issue with Chief's handling of arcs that are part of solids in newer versions.  In fact, you can create a similar object in X13 using the aforementioned boolean operations (finished object looks fine), save the plan, open in X15, and without making any changes, bullnose edge is wonky.   For now, I would suggest converting that arc to a multiple segment polyline.  Oh, and please report to tech support so it gets fixed.

Right, so, this  ^ ^