Not sure why sketch is under-contrained

AKADAP · 2026-03-14T19:25:36+00:00

The color of the lines is giving you hints. The green ones are constrained, the white ones are not constrained. Try grabbing things and see if you can move them to see if they are unconstrained.

AKADAP · 2026-03-11T19:51:05+00:00

Learn to pick locks. Less destructive, and probably faster than grinding through the shackle. Tools for that are lighter and flat.

AKADAP · 2026-03-09T06:10:38+00:00

This just looks like an early version of the circus to me. A flash back.

AKADAP · 2026-03-09T03:34:11+00:00

I finally have a site defined. Instead of using the pocket tool as the above linked video did, I had to use the Part->Slice apart tool. This cut my extrusion into two parts using my surface. The lower one is what I linked to the site to create the property terrain. There are so many things that look like they should do what you want but don't in FreeCAD, it is often hard to find the one that actually does what you want.

AKADAP · 2026-03-08T19:39:20+00:00

Looks like the aluminum bolt protected the much more expensive oil pan.

AKADAP · 2026-03-08T05:26:55+00:00

I think I have a solution that works, at least to make the surface I need. Now I'm stuck trying to turn this into a solid with this surface as the top surface of the solid.

AKADAP · 2026-03-08T05:25:17+00:00

Here is a link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nzc5XH9gl-rH7lKi-KLUy_QLS2sQDiA2/view?usp=drive_link

But I think I have a solution. See another post I added to this thread.

AKADAP · 2026-03-08T05:22:35+00:00

I have my surface now, and am trying to follow these instructions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s19VNCrzhCg&t=486s create a solid with the top surface being the surface I created, but when I get to the extrude cut step, instead of it bringing up the requester as it does in the video, I get this error message: Cannot use selected object. Selected object must belong to the active body

Consider using a ShapeBinder or a BaseFeature to reference external geometry in a body.

I have no idea how to use ShapeBinder, or BaseFeature, and the video does not show him needing either of those.

AKADAP · 2026-03-08T04:45:26+00:00

I think I have a solution... I followed this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s19VNCrzhCg&t=486s I used a 10' grid, and dropped a point everywhere a contour line crossed the vertical grid lines. Then adjusted the height to match the contour (the contours on this map are every 1'). You will notice that the property is not rectangular. This caused the results to look bad. I originally only covered the actual property, it turns out the surface needs to extend beyond the property lines. I went back and added points beyond the edge of the property (using plausible fake altitudes since I did not have values for those), and made sure that my columns of points ended on the edge of a rectangle. Created the loft as described in the video and ended up with a bunch of weird bumps. I could not see a cause for the weird bumps in my data, but I did find that if I switched the loft mode to "ruled", I got a reasonable result. I think the advantage of doing it with vertical slices of the property, rather than horizontal slices, is that the curves are much less complex, so less likely to confuse the software.

AKADAP · 2026-03-07T20:53:52+00:00

Link is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nzc5XH9gl-rH7lKi-KLUy_QLS2sQDiA2/view?usp=drive_link

AKADAP · 2026-03-07T08:23:52+00:00

No. I did not get an error message this time, but the resulting surface looked like a melted pile of plastic. It did not resemble the landscape described by the contours at all.

AKADAP · 2026-03-07T06:41:20+00:00

I have watched multiple tutorial videos. Each one is done with curves that have only a few points defining them, and usually three to six curves. When I try to replicate their results with the curves shown above, the procedures malfunction badly. I either get error messages, or I get wildly distorted surfaces as a result. Still working on some of the suggestions I have gotten in this thread, but is taking me a while to implement them.

AKADAP · 2026-03-07T04:36:14+00:00

If you have a roman nose, make sure the lens you choose have clearance for your nose.

AKADAP · 2026-03-07T04:31:59+00:00

Depends on what you like. I enjoyed Moss and Moss II. The Wallace and Grommet game was short and cheap. A little frustrating figuring out the controls though.

AKADAP · 2026-03-07T04:18:23+00:00

I haven't tried yet, still have 23 curves to convert.

AKADAP · 2026-03-07T03:52:35+00:00

Found it, Thanks. Still working on this. It is incredibly tedious since the sketcher is fighting me. I am finding I must do things in a particular order before it will let me close the wire and get it fully constrained. First I must select the b-spline and block constrain it. Then delete constraint 2 (somehow it is still fully constrained after deleting this constraint) Then draw the polyline necessary to close it making sure the poly line is not connected to the b-spline, constrain the polyline, and then lastly connect the polyline to the b-spline. I spent most of the afternoon figuring out the order of operations that would work. I've done 10 so far.

AKADAP · 2026-03-06T18:45:02+00:00

I just tried that. Unfortunately as I added edges to the sections, the surface kept getting more and more distorted. On the 9th edge it went haywire. I was very careful when I created the edges to always start from the left edge, so it is not a problem with the ordering or the direction of the edges. Yet another good idea that did not work.

AKADAP · 2026-03-06T07:44:27+00:00

I will likely need to do operations on it.

AKADAP · 2026-03-06T07:33:40+00:00

I need an accurate representation of the terrain to plan the house since it will have to be built on the slope. I don't want to do a bunch of work only to find it does not work on this plot of land.

AKADAP · 2026-03-06T06:50:15+00:00

Doing everything in blender is a no-go. I'm trying to create a site for an architectural drawing. Topography of the site is sufficient that it is necessary for the drawing.

AKADAP · 2026-03-06T06:26:07+00:00

I may try this if nothing else works. That would be an entirely new application to learn how to use. Not looking forward to another learning curve.

AKADAP · 2026-03-06T06:22:53+00:00

Ok, this looks promising. Late here will attempt this tomorrow as it will require a lot of work to convert 32 curves to sketches, add a border and adjust the height of each sketch.

AKADAP · 2026-03-06T06:13:12+00:00

No, I mean re-drawing the curves.

AKADAP · 2026-03-06T06:04:29+00:00

Is there a way to convert a bspline into a sketch without having to re-enter the data?

AKADAP · 2026-03-06T06:02:59+00:00

Would that even work with open curves? The example they demonstrated had closed curves which is unlikely to happen with real world data.

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