Editing a STEP file

Rhino
1

I have this step file that I want to delete these 2 holes…but when I try to click on them the whole model is selected. How do I delete those holes ?

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Screenshot 2023-06-30 at 12.27.12 PM1038×804 166 KB

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Screenshot 2023-06-30 at 12.32.40 PM1532×1018 136 KB

2

You could try the UntrimHoles command (Surface > Surface Edit Tools > Untrim Holes).

3

First of all, this file being a STEP will make no difference. If you save it as a Rhino 3DM file, it can be converted to a STEP at any time later.

Secondly, you need to be more ‘surgical’ when you have a polysurface, especially a complex assembly. To close a hole, follow these steps :

  • Use Solid > Extract Surface to select and ‘detach’ the hole’s exterior face.
  • Do the same the hole’s internal cyclinder and delete.
  • The exterior face is now a single face, but you can join it back to the other surfaces later, so don’t move it!’
  • Use Surface > Surface Edit Tools > UnTrim and select the edge of the hole. It will close up!
  • You can now select the previously extracted surface, the rest of the geometry, and use Join to reconnect.
1 Like
4

The solutions above will work if your issue is that by ‘whole model’ you mean that you are selecting a whole single object or polysurface and you didn’t know about these editing tools.

You might be experiencing a different situation where all the parts/objects/polysurfaces of your model, when imported from a step file, were imported as a Block.

In that case, you have to double-click the part you want to edit to enter Block Edit mode, and within that Block Edit session run the suggestions above. Then after the edit close the block edit floating window by hitting Ok (hitting cancel will NOT save your edit).

You can also explode your blocks to make your model editable (but you will be charge your Step assembly structure that you might want to preserve before re-exporting this edited model as a step again, so be careful with this approach you you want to maintain your step the same, only removing a whole). You can explode your Block using the Explode command, but only explode if under object properties you have a block definition. Otherwise you will explode a polysurface into its separate surface components. Blocks could be nested (blocks inside blocks), you you would have to keep exploding. Just like you can have groups inside groups. Alternative you can use the ExplodeBlocks command,.

You can also start over and at import time look at the options of Step import (button near the open button in the file-open dialog box), and uncheck import-as-block.

This is all very confusing, we know. I hope this helps,

G

5

clicking on an object selects the entire object, that is how rhino works on surfaces which are joined with each other. you can use subselect which is cmd shift and left mouse click or left click mouse drag for window selection. then you can select and delete parts which are joined. though using the method @jari.huuskola mentioned is indeed best for such tasks.