is it possible to make the stomach solid with the hollow?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

i have a stomach image. i used Sculpt Tool to make the model as solid/surface. But then i realized that Scuplt Tool covers the hollow/cavity of the stomach. Then, i thought i could use Shell Tool to make the hollow for the model but shell could not be created.  i attached my stomach model. i just want the stomach to be solid but with the hollow as well. what is the best way to do this? Many thanks 

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi azha0011,

I looked that this again, using the sculpted model from the other thread, and I don't see the Shell tool working for this model. I also looked at using the Thicken tool to create a "shell" of the surface model as well as a couple of other methods involving sketches, the Project Cut Edges tool, and Loft.

All of them lead to dead ends for me, but I'm not real deep on some of the tricks concerning converting this type of surface model, and the laptop I'm using at the moment is not built for this type of heavy lifting... so I might have going about it wrong and/or might have missed a solution that someone else will see.

 But let's back up and ask about the origin of this model. Where did it come from, and is there a possibility of importing it differently? Do you have the original source file?

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

hi @Curtis_Waguespack

The original file comes from MATLAB. Then, i use Inventor to trim unwanted part (because i unable to do it in MATLAB) and yes, i still have the original file (stl file) 

[Frank-Oosterwaal]

Hi,

I think the reason why Inventor made a surface and not a solid using the mesh enabler is because there is something wrong in the mesh. Yesterday I tried to find what is wrong but I just run into errors every trick I tried… It also took a loooooong time since there are about 15.000 faces Here's what I tried besides what @Curtis_Waguespack already mentioned.

So first I tried to thicken the surface, but this will result in an error saying there’s a gap in the mesh which Inventor can’t solve. So next I tried to repair the mesh with the “Repair Bodies command”. In the Repair environment I tried finding errors but Inventor did not find any. Next I unstitched the surface and used stitch to find gaps with insane low tolerance but still Inventor did not find any gaps. Stitched and tried to thicken the surface, same error…. Went back to the repair environment, unstitched the surface again and went back to the modelling environment. Used the stitch feature to find gaps, still no gaps. Stitched the surface and tried to thicken the new quilt, same error… Running out of options here.

Tried to sculp the surface which we know works, then made a new solid around the stomach and used combine to make a negative of the stomach out of the solid. Next, tried to remove the cube around the negative, same error…

Maybe a negative in a cube is also a solution for you. If so, see the screencast. Can’t share the part since you use Inventor 2015 (Won’t make the same mistake twice!). If this is no solution to you, can you share the .stl? Maybe something went wrong using the mesh enabler.

[Anonymous]

Hello @Frank-Oosterwaal

it's you again   the negative in a cube is not the solution. Anyway, thank you. Perhaps , i'm going to refer to it for any project   i wish that i could attach the stl file, but there's an error when i want to attach the stl file. (does not have valid extension for an attachment) 

[I_Forge_KC]

When the mesh enabler is used in Inventor, each of the triangular facets of an open STL model become a trimmed surface. From an internal model hierarchy, this is an absolute nightmare. It leaves some edges welded, some not, and generally is a beast to handle. If the model in question was watertight, there is much less that goes wrong - but since you have an open surface with 15,000 facets, this thing has some problems.

I would recommend taking this model through a workflow like this...

1) Open the STL file in Autodesk ReMake

2) Export the STL file in OBJ Quads for Fusion

3) Open the OBJ in Fusion 360

4) Convert the OBJ to T-Splines

5) Convert the T-Splines to BREP

6) Do any modifications you need to

7) Export as a STEP/IGES/SAT

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

hello @I_Forge_KC

I installed Inventor Remake. After load my stl file, i just use Edit Tool (Edit-Slice and fill) to do the modification. then, just simply export the file as stl. thank you for your idea. i did it   Thank you to @Frank-Oosterwaal and @Curtis_Waguespack for the explanations!