topic Re: Cleaning up empty object ? in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Cleaning up empty object ?

sis_gnougnou — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 20:57:30 GMT

Hi everyone,

I would like to know if there is an easy way to clean up empty bodies ? Let me illustrate with a picture :

In Step 1, I create a simple shape, which automatically creates "body 1".

In Step 2, I cut this body in half using a simple extrude, which creates "body 2".

In Step 3, I extrude body 2 entirely, but the body 2 object still exists. It is basically now a "null object".

In this simple example, I can just remove it, which is fine. But I have some very complexe models on which I had to make big boolean operations, resulting in the complete destruction of plenty of small bodies. When I export the model to be used in 3D programs, all the empty objects are maintained, which is very dirty.

I would like to be able to clean all those empty objects with a hypothetical function "remove all empty bodies". Is there such feature available in Fusion ? Thanks ! 🙂

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

g-andresen — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 21:23:47 GMT

Hi,

please share your design

File > export > save as f3d on local device > attach to next post

günther

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

davebYYPCU — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 22:00:40 GMT

Simple example of a bad workflow.

step 1, make body 3!

Remove body 2, is already a function, when it is solid.

Extrude Cut a body out of existence, not seen a need for that.

Might help....

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

sis_gnougnou — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 23:04:07 GMT

Design is sadly private and cannot be shared openly, hence my really simple example 😕.

@davebYYPCUof course this is a bad workflow 😉. If I had known in advance, I would have done things differently.

The original object is a straight metal corridor, and has plenty of small parts. I needed to turn it into a 90° corner, so what I did is a copy of the original model, rotated it 90°, made a sketch from top with a huge square, with a cut in its diagonale, and used it to delete half of the original model with one half, and the other half with the other half of the huge square. I ended up with the 2 models (original and copy) merging at a perfect diagonal. It works, but all the small pieces that were part of the cut half remain as null objects.

Pro Paint Skill at work. I wasn't initially planning on doing this 90° corner, but now that I need it, I ain't gonna redo the entire object. If I have to keep my dirty null objects I'll live with that, but I was simply wondering if there was a handy tool to remove such null bodies 😉

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

laughingcreek — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 23:28:18 GMT

what is showing in the screen shot for the third step isn't consistant with what happens when I replicate your steps. body 1 should go away. if it's not going away then either your doing somehting else, or there is a bug. if it keeps happening after a restart I would report it to AD.

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

laughingcreek — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 00:49:44 GMT

never mind, I didn't catch that you where obliterating the body in the third step instead of just removing it. that is definitely a bug, but doesn't come up to often b/c most people will just remove it instead. which is what you should do. select all the bodies you want to get rid of from the tree and use "remove" (not delete).

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

sis_gnougnou — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 01:04:23 GMT

As I feared, there is no feature to delete empty objects.

One workaround I thought of was to use the property panel by selecting all my objects one by one, and then deleting those with 0 area/volume. But even that is really cumbersome as you have to right click > properties, and then press "OK", then select the next one, and do it again. If I could at least keep that window open and run through my objects, that would be fine.

Thanks everyone for your help 😉

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

TrippyLighting — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 01:30:41 GMT

You need to reprodcue the problem in a simpler design. Removing bugs from hear-say is impossible. the Fusion 360 team needs data.

In my experence this only happens when imprecise modeling techniques are employed and the object that seems to be non existent simply falls victim Fuion 360's LOD algorithm, wich does not display and perhaps not even tesselates geomery below a certain threshold.

So in other words, the object still exists as geomery but is so small that it simply isn't displayed.

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

sis_gnougnou — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 01:41:31 GMT

Hi,

Please find attached to this message the simpliest example probably possible to this issue. In the example, I created a simple cube that I proceed to then extrude entirely on itself. After the operation, "Body1" still exists as a null object instead of being destroyed from the body list, as it doesn't represent anything in the viewport anymore.

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

TrippyLighting — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 01:46:30 GMT

Yes that is a pretty curious bug 😉

I would have to say that this is the forst time I've seen this reported in more than 5 years on this forum and I spend a lot of time here.

If you really have a problem with that ina a design then I'd call your modeling practice at least unothodox 😉

BTW you can "Remove" the body, there is function for that.

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

sis_gnougnou — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 02:12:20 GMT

Thanks for your reply.

I indeed know about this function, which works well in most cases, especially when I know which object is to be deleted. In my case however, which is for 3D rendering and not for actual engineering design, it can quickly get messy, especially when time is a huge factor.

I guess I'll go over each and every bit and just remove the one that have no volume/area. This sounds like the easiest solution, even if cumbersome. After that, as surprising as it may sound, the model will be really clean.

Re: Cleaning up empty object ?

davebYYPCU — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 21:18:20 GMT

Despite your workflow,

just hide the bodies to keep, window select the bodies to remove.

If that doesn’t work, should be a hint about your workflow again.

Multiple Select the Visible bodies in the browser, and Remove them in one shot.

Might help....