Adding and subtracting polysurfaces is integral to what I’m trying to do with Rhino. I’m getting lots of failed operations however. Sometimes there’s good reason for it. Other times it doesn’t work until I break things down into steps.
I know from the famous filleting topic that Rhino won’t fudge things. If however Rhino were to give me some sort of “tolerance” it would speed me up immensely. I don’t need the accuracy.
I’m getting better and have built a tool chest of tricks to get by. And I know most every program will encounter the same issue(s). Sketchup is very similar. And Revit just breaks while sending you 800 warning messages. I wish there was just some magic cure… such as simplifying a non-manifold surface. I’ve even thought about shrink wrapping the bad surface. What I’m getting at is that in my case I can sacrifice some geometric accuracy in order to fix the surface or let Rhino go ahead with the operation.
You could lower your file tolerances…
However, “I don’t need the accuracy.” is a refrain that is often heard here.
At a certain point if you start to allow these “out of tolerance” situations, they will multiply and then even with your loose tolerances things will stop working. And by that time the entire model will likely be so borked by inaccuracy that you can no longer use it.
The solution of course is to model accurately. Generally accurate modeling promotes successful Trimming/Joining/Boolean operations.
The question to ask is how it became non-manifold in the first place. While it is possible to provoke this behavior even with close tolerance modeling (if you know how), often it is caused by trying to force things together that are just-out-of-tolerance, and one or more surfaces get “stuck” inside the model.
Usually you can just show non-manifold edges, that will tell you where those surfaces are and then you can delete them. However that will most likely leave you with gaps because stuff was out of tolerance to begin with, and once you delete the non-manifold surfaces, you can no longer join the object back up into a closed solid - because you will have out of tolerance naked edges where the non-manifold surfaces were.
Can you send an example file ?
I’m impatiently waiting for a cutaway material so I can fake boolean operations on renderings…
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Thanks for the suggestion I will try it and see if things improve!
Understanding Tolerances [McNeel Wiki].
Sometimes my own fault, no two ways about it. Other times not so much. There are so many different cases/causes.
Next time it does it I should export the offending surfaces. I actually finished what I hope is the worst part of my model but I’m sure something will come up again.