Creating Walls using boolean button - Warning Newbie Alert!

[exup]

Hi,

very much a newbie (2 weeks) to Autodesk Viz2007. Was a self taught Visio user for many years. I am following the Sybex mastering viz2007 but stuck on the section about drawing simple walls. Everything so far has been easy but trying to replicate what it says in the book is not working for me even after re-reading the book several times.

 

Situation is that I am creating two simple boxed shaped rooms with an outline to give thickness. Everything works correctly if the first room is totally enclosed on all four sides. But when I try using an open ended room it does not work.

 

The steps are;

Create square using line under shapes

When closing square click yes to create spline

Give it an outline (wall thickness)

Extrude wall to give hieght.

 

Create second room by drawing a rectangle

Attach it to the first shape

Trim corner off

give it an outline

Then apply boolean (to correct the intersections)

Extrude

(All works well)

 

But when I try this with an open ended room all is not well.

 

Create a three sided shape using line (no option to create spline as in the first operation)

Give it an outline

Extrude wall

 

Create second room by drawing a rectangle

Attach it to the first shape

Trim corner off

give it an outline

Then apply boolean (to correct the intersections)

Boolean button is selectable but when I apply it does nothing

The pointer changes to the boolean symbol.

Can still extrude shape ok but end points or vertices are not in their wanted locations.

 

 

I should add that not only is it ugly I then get into difficulties when droping on a floor or ceiling. I cannot pick up the end points at each intersection correctly. Instead my outline does not follow perfectly around the room.

 

 

I may not be speaking the correct techincal terms so hopefully the pictures can tell the story.

 

Picture one shows the two zoomed out rooms

Picture two shows the two magnified intersections. Left is correct, right is wrong or not desired.

 

 

Exup.

 

(To be honest I have orginally posted this request at another forum CADTutor but I think their forum is mainly 2D autocad. So will leave that forum shortly and remain here)

[vodka79]

Why not use AEC walls instead?

[Matt Clementson]

I'm not sure why you're even using booleans here. That's a simple shape in plan to draw and extrude - no need to create two shapes and boolean together.

[vodka79]

I'm a newbie myself, i've seen the book by brian, the resources on this forum. It seemed that using a box and then extrude or quick slice is prefered.

 

But doesn't max and viz have AEC walls? I feel that it's easier to use(for a newbie) but why isn't it the prefered tool? Is there any negative side which i should know so that i can focus on the extrude tool?

[exup]

Hi, yes VIZ 07 does have AEC walls and they are easy to use. I think the book was using the boolean as a example of how to subtract shapes to form new ones.

 

In future I will continue to use AEC walls instead.

 

Thanks for the advice.

 

Exup