Model Building

[Chic Aeon]

41 minutes ago, IvyTechEngineer said:

This model has these metrics: 

Upload Fee    37
Land Impact    27.57
Download    27.57
Physics        4.6
Server        0.5

:D.   There is no reason that  your model should be 27 land impact at one meter (oh my).  Yes, you know that. What you may not know is that trying to convert models made for other purposes  rather than game assets often (OFTEN) doesn't work -- and realistically shouldn't be uploaded (my opinion anyway). 

Other than making the model in a SIMPLISTIC form and using textures to fill in the details, you might try the decimate tool in Blender or whatever that is called in your modeling software of choice.   I doubt that will help much though.  You can also remove edge loops but again a lot of tiny geometry there. 

Models in most cases (small things especially) should be JOINED before upload.

You can only have 8 materials per model or model piece (to be joined later).  There are various smart ways to work around this. 

Use a simple cube for many small items -- for the physics part of the upload choice. 

 

Edit:  Also look at the lowest LOD setting and make the smaller.  There is likely no need you will need to see this from far far away.  If you cannot make that number smaller then the uploader is not happy with the model :D.

 

Good luck.   Let us know if you accomplish your task. 

You could also put an add in the wanted section to get someone familiar with SL modeling best practices to make it over for you (most likely from scratch). 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Chic Aeon

[Aquila Kytori]

Basically what Chic has already said  you are going to have to do the geometry reduction by hand.

Just to add the first couple of steps that I would do to reduce the triangle count:

1: Separate the board from the components. Make it a separate object for the moment.

Select all the faces of the board , top bottom and sides and all the faces of the 4 large holes. It can be difficult to select all the faces in one go (perhaps do it in Side view with in Wireframe mode), so it may help to create a "Board" vertex group so that you can add the selected faces as you go.

 

 

Quick way to select the face rings of the boards very small holes is to , In Face select mode select 1 of the little faces then Select > Select Similar > Perimeter and if you set the Threshold value very very low all the liitle face rings will be selected.

 

With all the board now selected hit the P key to separate it to be a new object.

 

2: Now with the board separated from the components you can work on the components as needed. Most are already low poly so they can be reused as is but parts that have circles in their makeup should be replaced with parts using less geometry.

 

The board as it is at the moment is 10861 tris !  When, simplifying this I don't think you should model the very small holes at all.

Later you will be mapping the boards top and bottom to images of an Arduino board and I think the little holes can be replaced with the pixels form that image.

So just select a few of the edge vertices of the board? duplicate them and make them a new object. From there you can reconstruct a new low poly board by joining the vertices and filling in the faces. This low poly board will have just the 4 larger holes (something like 12 or so vertices in their circumference).

 

The most important thing will be finding and mapping the board to an image with or without the components, photo ................

 

or a more illustrative  image :

 

 

When ready you can join the components back to the board to have a single object again.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2022 by Aquila Kytori

[IvyTechEngineer]

On 5/6/2022 at 2:20 PM, Chic Aeon said:

:D.   There is no reason that  your model should be 27 land impact at one meter (oh my).  Yes, you know that. What you may not know is that trying to convert models made for other purposes  rather than game assets often (OFTEN) doesn't work -- and realistically shouldn't be uploaded (my opinion anyway). 

Other than making the model in a SIMPLISTIC form and using textures to fill in the details, you might try the decimate tool in Blender or whatever that is called in your modeling software of choice.   I doubt that will help much though.  You can also remove edge loops but again a lot of tiny geometry there. 

Models in most cases (small things especially) should be JOINED before upload.

You can only have 8 materials per model or model piece (to be joined later).  There are various smart ways to work around this. 

Use a simple cube for many small items -- for the physics part of the upload choice. 

 

Edit:  Also look at the lowest LOD setting and make the smaller.  There is likely no need you will need to see this from far far away.  If you cannot make that number smaller then the uploader is not happy with the model :D.

 

Good luck.   Let us know if you accomplish your task. 

You could also put an add in the wanted section to get someone familiar with SL modeling best practices to make it over for you (most likely from scratch). 

 

 

I understand your comments and appreciate you taking the time to respond. It is sometime difficult for me to understand the significance of some of the SL upload values. My objective is to find ways to use CAD drawings in SL without spending a lot of time reducing geometry or recreating things. For this example I downloaded a model from GrabCAD and started to reduce geometry in Solidworks and Blender.  I picked the model that was the least complex (some part models are away to complex but I will tackle the obvious things first). In Solidworks I delete the vias (small holes in the circuit board) and un-needed fillets which reduces the mesh by 76% of the original vertices, edges, faces and triangles. In Blender if I use the Mesh Clean-up for Merge by Distance, Degenerate and Limited Dissolves I can reduce by at least another 40%. I have used Decimation in the past but I first want to simplify the model as much as I can. I will continue to work on reducing the mesh. Regarding adding textures I understand that I can only have 8 materials. That should not be a problem. I need black, red, light gray, and maybe the Arduino board color (blue or aqua). Not sure what you mean about "JOINED", is this something done in Blender with an "append" or linking objects in SL or something else?

[Chic Aeon]

9 minutes ago, IvyTechEngineer said:

I understand your comments and appreciate you taking the time to respond. It is sometime difficult for me to understand the significance of some of the SL upload values. My objective is to find ways to use CAD drawings in SL without spending a lot of time reducing geometry or recreating things. For this example I downloaded a model from GrabCAD and started to reduce geometry in Solidworks and Blender.  I picked the model that was the least complex (some part models are away to complex but I will tackle the obvious things first). In Solidworks I delete the vias (small holes in the circuit board) and un-needed fillets which reduces the mesh by 76% of the original vertices, edges, faces and triangles. In Blender if I use the Mesh Clean-up for Merge by Distance, Degenerate and Limited Dissolves I can reduce by at least another 40%. I have used Decimation in the past but I first want to simplify the model as much as I can. I will continue to work on reducing the mesh. Regarding adding textures I understand that I can only have 8 materials. That should not be a problem. I need black, red, light gray, and maybe the Arduino board color (blue or aqua). Not sure what you mean about "JOINED", is this something done in Blender with an "append" or linking objects in SL or something else?

Joined means that the mesh would be all one piece rather than trying to upload a mesh made up of several pieces (like a table and four legs all separate but uploaded at the same time.  It is called JOIN in Blender but not necessarily in other programs :D.

 

Over the years there have been others trying to do what you are doing (for a long while it was illegal to upload other people's mesh so some of us weren't all that helpful LOL) but to my knowledge no one found a good way. The SL uploader is picky and has rules so it is always best to make a model with that simplicity and those rules in mind.   There are some models that apparently won't upload no matter what people try to do :D.

 

Good luck!!!!

 

Aquila is queen so her "voice" should most likely be heard the loudest most of the time.  

She helped me oh so often when things "weren't working" --- which of course ME, not Blender LOL.   

[IvyTechEngineer]

On 5/6/2022 at 3:52 PM, Aquila Kytori said:

Basically what Chic has already said  you are going to have to do the geometry reduction by hand.

Just to add the first couple of steps that I would do to reduce the triangle count:

1: Separate the board from the components. Make it a separate object for the moment.

Select all the faces of the board , top bottom and sides and all the faces of the 4 large holes. It can be difficult to select all the faces in one go (perhaps do it in Side view with in Wireframe mode), so it may help to create a "Board" vertex group so that you can add the selected faces as you go.

 

 

Quick way to select the face rings of the boards very small holes is to , In Face select mode select 1 of the little faces then Select > Select Similar > Perimeter and if you set the Threshold value very very low all the liitle face rings will be selected.

 

With all the board now selected hit the P key to separate it to be a new object.

 

2: Now with the board separated from the components you can work on the components as needed. Most are already low poly so they can be reused as is but parts that have circles in their makeup should be replaced with parts using less geometry.

 

The board as it is at the moment is 10861 tris !  When, simplifying this I don't think you should model the very small holes at all.

Later you will be mapping the boards top and bottom to images of an Arduino board and I think the little holes can be replaced with the pixels form that image.

So just select a few of the edge vertices of the board? duplicate them and make them a new object. From there you can reconstruct a new low poly board by joining the vertices and filling in the faces. This low poly board will have just the 4 larger holes (something like 12 or so vertices in their circumference).

 

The most important thing will be finding and mapping the board to an image with or without the components, photo ................

 

or a more illustrative  image :

 

 

When ready you can join the components back to the board to have a single object again.

 

 

Thank you so much for the advise. I am not sure I know what you and Chic are talking about regarding "Joining", is that like appending in Blender or Linking in SL? Yes, some of the parts have are too complex. I had already deleted the tiny holes (vias) in the board. Was not sure about how to reduce the reduce the number of edges in the 4 large holes. Already have started to work on reducing some of the geometry on the two end parts (USB and Power). The IC is a total mess. I can also remove some of the other fillets and chamfers in the model. Thanks again ...  

[Quarrel Kukulcan]

46 minutes ago, IvyTechEngineer said:

I am not sure I know what you and Chic are talking about regarding "Joining", is that like appending in Blender or Linking in SL?

Joining in Blender is taking two or more separate mesh objects and combining them into one single (and probably noncontiguous) mesh object with the "join" function.

Linking in SL is when one or more child prim/mesh objects are connected to one parent prim/mesh object. It's what you end up with if you don't join in your 3D modeler.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Quarrel Kukulcan

[Aquila Kytori]

 

On 5/11/2022 at 6:36 PM, IvyTechEngineer said:

The IC is a total mess.

Then all you need to do is :

Find the mess,

Delete the mess,

Re-construct the missing faces using less geometry.

 

Find the mess:

 

Temporarily triangulate the model so that we can see which parts are a mess, Face menu > Triangulate faces :

 

Take a step back with Crtl Z (Undo the triangulation)  and in Face select mode delete the sides and lower Ngon faces of the IC :

 

Re-construct the deleted ngon faces using less geometry:

 

Next is do the same with the top faces of the IC.

Before deleting the top face we need to Add some circles with less vertices in their circumference directly over the circular recesses. The circle will be added at the position of the 3D cursor.

To do this first select one of the original circles top edge ring, use  Shft S  to open the Cursor Snap to pie menu and choose the  Cursor to Selected option :

 

With 3D cursor correctly position go into Top View and Add a circle ( Shft A > Circle) with 8 vertices and scale it to match the original 36 vertex circle :

 

Repeat for the other circles :

 

Now we can delete all the original faces that make up the top of the IC :

 

And finally fill in the top faces using the new lower vertex circles :

 

Of course another option could to do away with the recesses in the top altogether and use an image texture instead.

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Aquila Kytori

[Aquila Kytori]

On 5/11/2022 at 6:36 PM, IvyTechEngineer said:

I am not sure I know what you and Chic are talking about regarding "Joining",

Remember in this screen-shot I Separated the Board from the Components :

 

Now the Board is one object and the Components are one object. This was done so that it would be easier to work on reducing the the geometry of the Board and Components if they were separated. Meaning we can now easilly select and hide one of them while we work on the other.

When both Board object and Components objects have been optimised we can join them both back together so that they will be one object again.

To join 2 objects to be one single object:  In Object mode,  first select one of the objects; then Shift select the second object, and use the key board shortcut  Ctrl J  to join them.    2 become 1

[Wulfie Reanimator]

27 minutes ago, Aquila Kytori said:

Re-construct the deleted ngon faces using less geometry

Don't forget that you'll have to unwrap the reconstructed faces.

[Coffee Pancake]

33 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Don't forget that you'll have to unwrap the reconstructed faces.

and you can put some of the faces inside the big face thats mostly hidden by the chip

[IvyTechEngineer]

1 hour ago, Aquila Kytori said:

 

Then all you need to do is :

Find the mess,

Delete the mess,

Re-construct the missing faces using less geometry.

 

Find the mess:

 

Temporarily triangulate the model so that we can see which parts are a mess, Face menu > Triangulate faces :

 

Take a step back with Crtl Z (Undo the triangulation)  and in Face select mode delete the sides and lower Ngon faces of the IC :

 

Re-construct the deleted ngon faces using less geometry:

 

Next is do the same with the top faces of the IC.

Before deleting the top face we need to Add some circles with less vertices in their circumference directly over the circular recesses. The circle will be added at the position of the 3D cursor.

To do this first select one of the original circles top edge ring, use  Shft S  to open the Cursor Snap to pie menu and choose the  Cursor to Selected option :

 

With 3D cursor correctly position go into Top View and Add a circle ( Shft A > Circle) with 8 vertices and scale it to match the original 36 vertex circle :

 

Repeat for the other circles :

 

Now we can delete all the original faces that make up the top of the IC :

 

And finally fill in the top faces using the new lower vertex circles :

 

Of course another option could to do away with the recesses in the top altogether and use an image texture instead.

 

I think you go above and beyond my expectations to answer my questions and I really appreciate you in depth help and advice. The use of the STL files can be a pain but if we can find ways to use them for SL there are a floodgate of new models that can be used to enhance the virtual experience. This forum and you are amazingly helpful I and I really appreciate your time and effort. Thank you ...

[IvyTechEngineer]

1 hour ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Don't forget that you'll have to unwrap the reconstructed faces.

I have not begun adding textures but for the IC I would probably just add a black material. The only texture needed is for the board top and back and the connectors, I think ...

[IvyTechEngineer]

56 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

and you can put some of the faces inside the big face thats mostly hidden by the chip

I want to figure out how to apply the board texture and then join the parts to the board as Aquila suggested. I have images of the front and back of the board as well as connector textures that I want to add. The Arduino is an open source design so there are other versions used by people. 

[Codex Alpha]

@Aquila Kytori Gee whiz, from the content of your posts and others on the SL forums, I really wish  had a 'favourite' or 'bookmark' post feature added so I can come back to refer to the knowledge presented - as they are valuable concepts for all of us to consider, but frequently get lost and never found again

[IvyTechEngineer]

20 hours ago, Aquila Kytori said:

 

Then all you need to do is :

Find the mess,

Delete the mess,

Re-construct the missing faces using less geometry.

 

Find the mess:

 

Temporarily triangulate the model so that we can see which parts are a mess, Face menu > Triangulate faces :

 

Take a step back with Crtl Z (Undo the triangulation)  and in Face select mode delete the sides and lower Ngon faces of the IC :

 

Re-construct the deleted ngon faces using less geometry:

 

Next is do the same with the top faces of the IC.

Before deleting the top face we need to Add some circles with less vertices in their circumference directly over the circular recesses. The circle will be added at the position of the 3D cursor.

To do this first select one of the original circles top edge ring, use  Shft S  to open the Cursor Snap to pie menu and choose the  Cursor to Selected option :

 

With 3D cursor correctly position go into Top View and Add a circle ( Shft A > Circle) with 8 vertices and scale it to match the original 36 vertex circle :

 

Repeat for the other circles :

 

Now we can delete all the original faces that make up the top of the IC :

 

And finally fill in the top faces using the new lower vertex circles :

 

Of course another option could to do away with the recesses in the top altogether and use an image texture instead.

 

I was wondering if there is an option to just reduce the vertices without redrawing the circle? Somewhere I saw one of the Blender gurus on YouTube select select alternating vertices and delete or dissolve edges. I tried the approach described in this video and it didn't seem to work. Using Blender 2.8

  

[IvyTechEngineer]

17 hours ago, Codex Alpha said:

@Aquila Kytori Gee whiz, from the content of your posts and others on the SL forums, I really wish  had a 'favourite' or 'bookmark' post feature added so I can come back to refer to the knowledge presented - as they are valuable concepts for all of us to consider, but frequently get lost and never found again

I do not know how to bookmark this thread but I have often referred to it. Not everything makes sense the first time you hear it ...

[Aquila Kytori]

2 hours ago, IvyTechEngineer said:

I tried the approach described in this video and it didn't seem to work. Using Blender 2.8

Works as described in the video in Blender 2.83.

Doesn't seem to work so well on "messy" mesh like the top face of the IC of the your Arduino board:

 

Similar operation on cleaner mesh :

Edited May 13, 2022 by Aquila Kytori

[Aquila Kytori]

On 5/12/2022 at 10:42 PM, IvyTechEngineer said:

I have not begun adding textures but for the IC I would probably just add a black material. The only texture needed is for the board top and back and the connectors, I think ...

Well I think if you have spent the time to optimise the model spend just a fraction of that time to create a reasonable texture for it.

It will look much more interesting when rezzed inworld if you add a texture to the top faces of many of the components.

When you layout the top and bottom images of the board on a 1024 x 1024 size texture you will find you have plenty of space below to add some component textures. Some can be copy and pasted from google and others you can just create a little dark grey rectangles and add some relevant white text  The more of the little components you have textured like that the better. I did a few:

Adding the coloured background is useful for a couple of reasons but in this case it means you don't have to be quite so accurate when you come to mapping your UV's to the texture.

I forgot but you can add a red spot to this texture. The reset button on the board can be mapped to this red area.

This texture can be brought into Blender and used as the material for the board and non metallic components.

 

On 5/12/2022 at 10:49 PM, IvyTechEngineer said:

I want to figure out how to apply the board texture

In Edge select mode add UV seams around the outer edges of the board top and bottom and the edges of the holes. Also around the top edge of the IC.

 

Next go into Top View and Face select mode.

If you now hover your mouse over the top face of the board and hit the L key is will select all of the upper faces bounded by seams. Do the same for the top face of the IC then hold down the Shift key to select the top faces of the smaller components that you want to texture. U to open the UV Mapping menu and choose the Project from View option.

Now go to the UV editor and reposition each UV island over the relevant part of your texture :

 

Repeat for the bottom of the board.

For the edge of the board and the inside edges of the 4 holes just select them and U > Unwrap. In the UV editor select the newly unwrapped islands ans scale them to zero (single point)  Select > S  0  Validate. This scaled to a single point can be moved so that it lies over a blue part of the board image.

The model now only needs 3 materials. 1 for the board and UV unwrapped component top faces.  1 for the dark surfaces and a third for the metal parts. The 2nd and third can be coloured when rezzed inworld.

 

I should add that instead of matching UV's to the texture  you can also save the UV unwrap, open it in your 2D software and map your texture images and texts to the UV's.

[IvyTechEngineer]

On 5/15/2022 at 4:29 PM, Aquila Kytori said:

Well I think if you have spent the time to optimise the model spend just a fraction of that time to create a reasonable texture for it.

It will look much more interesting when rezzed inworld if you add a texture to the top faces of many of the components.

When you layout the top and bottom images of the board on a 1024 x 1024 size texture you will find you have plenty of space below to add some component textures. Some can be copy and pasted from google and others you can just create a little dark grey rectangles and add some relevant white text  The more of the little components you have textured like that the better. I did a few:

Adding the coloured background is useful for a couple of reasons but in this case it means you don't have to be quite so accurate when you come to mapping your UV's to the texture.

I forgot but you can add a red spot to this texture. The reset button on the board can be mapped to this red area.

This texture can be brought into Blender and used as the material for the board and non metallic components.

 

In Edge select mode add UV seams around the outer edges of the board top and bottom and the edges of the holes. Also around the top edge of the IC.

 

Next go into Top View and Face select mode.

If you now hover your mouse over the top face of the board and hit the L key is will select all of the upper faces bounded by seams. Do the same for the top face of the IC then hold down the Shift key to select the top faces of the smaller components that you want to texture. U to open the UV Mapping menu and choose the Project from View option.

Now go to the UV editor and reposition each UV island over the relevant part of your texture :

 

Repeat for the bottom of the board.

For the edge of the board and the inside edges of the 4 holes just select them and U > Unwrap. In the UV editor select the newly unwrapped islands ans scale them to zero (single point)  Select > S  0  Validate. This scaled to a single point can be moved so that it lies over a blue part of the board image.

The model now only needs 3 materials. 1 for the board and UV unwrapped component top faces.  1 for the dark surfaces and a third for the metal parts. The 2nd and third can be coloured when rezzed inworld.

 

I should add that instead of matching UV's to the texture  you can also save the UV unwrap, open it in your 2D software and map your texture images and texts to the UV's.

Wow, this is what I want to do. Very nice job. 

 

On 5/13/2022 at 1:26 PM, Aquila Kytori said:

Works as described in the video in Blender 2.83.

Doesn't seem to work so well on "messy" mesh like the top face of the IC of the your Arduino board:

 

Similar operation on cleaner mesh :

Thanks, I will give it another try. I think I was selecting vertices vs edges.

[IvyTechEngineer]

On 5/15/2022 at 4:29 PM, Aquila Kytori said:

Well I think if you have spent the time to optimise the model spend just a fraction of that time to create a reasonable texture for it.

It will look much more interesting when rezzed inworld if you add a texture to the top faces of many of the components.

When you layout the top and bottom images of the board on a 1024 x 1024 size texture you will find you have plenty of space below to add some component textures. Some can be copy and pasted from google and others you can just create a little dark grey rectangles and add some relevant white text  The more of the little components you have textured like that the better. I did a few:

Adding the coloured background is useful for a couple of reasons but in this case it means you don't have to be quite so accurate when you come to mapping your UV's to the texture.

I forgot but you can add a red spot to this texture. The reset button on the board can be mapped to this red area.

This texture can be brought into Blender and used as the material for the board and non metallic components.

 

In Edge select mode add UV seams around the outer edges of the board top and bottom and the edges of the holes. Also around the top edge of the IC.

 

Next go into Top View and Face select mode.

If you now hover your mouse over the top face of the board and hit the L key is will select all of the upper faces bounded by seams. Do the same for the top face of the IC then hold down the Shift key to select the top faces of the smaller components that you want to texture. U to open the UV Mapping menu and choose the Project from View option.

Now go to the UV editor and reposition each UV island over the relevant part of your texture :

 

Repeat for the bottom of the board.

For the edge of the board and the inside edges of the 4 holes just select them and U > Unwrap. In the UV editor select the newly unwrapped islands ans scale them to zero (single point)  Select > S  0  Validate. This scaled to a single point can be moved so that it lies over a blue part of the board image.

The model now only needs 3 materials. 1 for the board and UV unwrapped component top faces.  1 for the dark surfaces and a third for the metal parts. The 2nd and third can be coloured when rezzed inworld.

 

I should add that instead of matching UV's to the texture  you can also save the UV unwrap, open it in your 2D software and map your texture images and texts to the UV's.

Wow, this is exactly what I want to learn how to do. I understand building the texture ok, How big was your final geometry for the board? Thank you, this is excellent help.

[IvyTechEngineer]

On 5/12/2022 at 2:44 PM, Aquila Kytori said:

 

Then all you need to do is :

Find the mess,

Delete the mess,

Re-construct the missing faces using less geometry.

 

Find the mess:

 

Temporarily triangulate the model so that we can see which parts are a mess, Face menu > Triangulate faces :

 

Take a step back with Crtl Z (Undo the triangulation)  and in Face select mode delete the sides and lower Ngon faces of the IC :

 

Re-construct the deleted ngon faces using less geometry:

 

Next is do the same with the top faces of the IC.

Before deleting the top face we need to Add some circles with less vertices in their circumference directly over the circular recesses. The circle will be added at the position of the 3D cursor.

To do this first select one of the original circles top edge ring, use  Shft S  to open the Cursor Snap to pie menu and choose the  Cursor to Selected option :

 

With 3D cursor correctly position go into Top View and Add a circle ( Shft A > Circle) with 8 vertices and scale it to match the original 36 vertex circle :

 

Repeat for the other circles :

 

Now we can delete all the original faces that make up the top of the IC :

 

And finally fill in the top faces using the new lower vertex circles :

 

Of course another option could to do away with the recesses in the top altogether and use an image texture instead.

 

I am avoiding working on the IC because it is so complicated for no good reason. Even the CAD drawing is way more complicated. Thanks, this looks like a lot of work...

[IvyTechEngineer]

On 5/6/2022 at 3:52 PM, Aquila Kytori said:

Basically what Chic has already said  you are going to have to do the geometry reduction by hand.

Just to add the first couple of steps that I would do to reduce the triangle count:

1: Separate the board from the components. Make it a separate object for the moment.

Select all the faces of the board , top bottom and sides and all the faces of the 4 large holes. It can be difficult to select all the faces in one go (perhaps do it in Side view with in Wireframe mode), so it may help to create a "Board" vertex group so that you can add the selected faces as you go.

 

 

Quick way to select the face rings of the boards very small holes is to , In Face select mode select 1 of the little faces then Select > Select Similar > Perimeter and if you set the Threshold value very very low all the liitle face rings will be selected.

 

With all the board now selected hit the P key to separate it to be a new object.

 

2: Now with the board separated from the components you can work on the components as needed. Most are already low poly so they can be reused as is but parts that have circles in their makeup should be replaced with parts using less geometry.

 

The board as it is at the moment is 10861 tris !  When, simplifying this I don't think you should model the very small holes at all.

Later you will be mapping the boards top and bottom to images of an Arduino board and I think the little holes can be replaced with the pixels form that image.

So just select a few of the edge vertices of the board? duplicate them and make them a new object. From there you can reconstruct a new low poly board by joining the vertices and filling in the faces. This low poly board will have just the 4 larger holes (something like 12 or so vertices in their circumference).

 

The most important thing will be finding and mapping the board to an image with or without the components, photo ................

 

or a more illustrative  image :

 

 

When ready you can join the components back to the board to have a single object again.

 

 

Sorry I have not commented on this post. I always get a little squeamish when I see objects that appear to get dimensionally shifted because I am not sure if I can fit everything back together. I think you can actually delete out right eh 50+ holes in the board. They won't help the student understand the Arduino any better if they are missing or present. I was trying to figure out how to create a Board "Vertex Group". I am using Blender 2.8, maybe I need to upgrade? 

Just watched a YouTube video (Using VERTEX GROUPS in Blender - Beginner Tutorial) and you can form a Vertex Group when you select the Object Data Properties. Cool, maybe I can use the feature to build a library of Blender models?

I have spent some time cleaning up the board file but discovered that I inadvertently deleted all the pins on the reset part. I want to add these pins back but I want to add them back to the same location that they were there before. I will do some more searching to see how I can add them back. OBTW, it has always bothered me that I cannot determine the exact x, y, and z location of a vertices in Blender. In CAD tools the exact dimension are always easy to find and use... 

[Aquila Kytori]

On 5/18/2022 at 7:54 PM, IvyTechEngineer said:

Just watched a YouTube video (Using VERTEX GROUPS in Blender - Beginner Tutorial) and you can form a Vertex Group when you select the Object Data Properties. Cool, maybe I can use the feature to build a library of Blender models?

The reason I suggested assigning the board to a vertex group was, as I had thought I had explained, so that you wouldn't have to try selecting all the boards vertices in one go (which could be tricky) so that it could then be separated to be its own object. Instead you could select some vertices > assign them to a Board vertex group, > select some more board vertices > assign these to the Board vertex group, > repeat until all the boards vertices had been assigned to the Board group. Now, to select all the boards vertices you just have to go to the Vertex Group panel > select the Board vertex group and hit the Select button at the bottom of that panel.

If you want to create a library of models, textures etc,  then you would use the new Asset Browser feature:

 

On 5/18/2022 at 7:54 PM, IvyTechEngineer said:

I have spent some time cleaning up the board file but discovered that I inadvertently deleted all the pins on the reset part. I want to add these pins back but I want to add them back to the same location that they were there before. I will do some more searching to see how I can add them back.

Its disappointing that for such a simple shape you have to "do some more searching to see how I can add them back."

Some options for adding back the pins :

1: Edit mode > select a pin from another component >  Shft D to make a duplicate > move duplicate to correct position and  resize if necessary. Duplicate this new pin and move to approx; correct position for the next pin. Duplicate and move for the other missing pins.

2: Create from scratch,  Edit mode select a nearby vertex > duplicate it > move , extrude etc to build up a pin. Duplicate this new pin and move to approx; correct position for the next pin. Duplicate and move for the other missing pins.

3: Edit mode, Position 3D cursor to approx correct position > Shft A  and Add a new mesh cube > resize etc........... Duplicate this new pin and move to approx; correct position for the next pin. Duplicate and move for the other missing pins.

4: Open the original Arduino model > Edit mode Select the missing pins > duplicate > P to separate to be a new object > Object mode > select the new "pins" object > Ctrl C to make a copy  > return to (or open) your new "Optimised Arduino" .blend > Object mode > Ctrl V to paste   (it should be pasted into the correct position) > Select the new "Pins" object then Shift select your partially  "Optimised " board object and use Ctrl J to join so that the pins will become part of the "Optimised" board.

Note that the exact position of pins/components will be determined when you have the top surface of the board mapped to a texture. They will need to be aligned to the solder pad positions of the texture on the board.

And you don't have to be very accurate in the dimensions of the pins. See the image below for a comparison between an actual reset switch pin relative size and the pin size in the original model.

 

The mistake that you made at the very beginning is that you should have made a copy of your original Arduino .blend file using the Save as option, then in this new file Object mode > Shft D to make a duplicate copy of the original board and worked on simplifying this copy. Doing it this way means you would still have the original board in the same .blend as your simplified board which would have been useful for when you make errors like this (deleting parts by mistake) You could easily copy and paste from original to simplified model.

Nothing to stop you now copying and pasting a copy of the original board object into this new file:

 

On 5/18/2022 at 7:54 PM, IvyTechEngineer said:

OBTW, it has always bothered me that I cannot determine the exact x, y, and z location of a vertices in Blender. In CAD tools the exact dimension are always easy to find and use... 

Edited May 22, 2022 by Aquila Kytori

[Aquila Kytori]

On 5/18/2022 at 3:52 PM, IvyTechEngineer said:

How big was your final geometry for the board?

The complete board is 3079 triangles  ( the base board by its self is 228 tris ) :

 

[IvyTechEngineer]

On 5/22/2022 at 5:38 PM, Aquila Kytori said:

The reason I suggested assigning the board to a vertex group was, as I had thought I had explained, so that you wouldn't have to try selecting all the boards vertices in one go (which could be tricky) so that it could then be separated to be its own object. Instead you could select some vertices > assign them to a Board vertex group, > select some more board vertices > assign these to the Board vertex group, > repeat until all the boards vertices had been assigned to the Board group. Now, to select all the boards vertices you just have to go to the Vertex Group panel > select the Board vertex group and hit the Select button at the bottom of that panel.

If you want to create a library of models, textures etc,  then you would use the new Asset Browser feature:

 

Its disappointing that for such a simple shape you have to "do some more searching to see how I can add them back."

Some options for adding back the pins :

1: Edit mode > select a pin from another component >  Shft D to make a duplicate > move duplicate to correct position and  resize if necessary. Duplicate this new pin and move to approx; correct position for the next pin. Duplicate and move for the other missing pins.

2: Create from scratch,  Edit mode select a nearby vertex > duplicate it > move , extrude etc to build up a pin. Duplicate this new pin and move to approx; correct position for the next pin. Duplicate and move for the other missing pins.

3: Edit mode, Position 3D cursor to approx correct position > Shft A  and Add a new mesh cube > resize etc........... Duplicate this new pin and move to approx; correct position for the next pin. Duplicate and move for the other missing pins.

4: Open the original Arduino model > Edit mode Select the missing pins > duplicate > P to separate to be a new object > Object mode > select the new "pins" object > Ctrl C to make a copy  > return to (or open) your new "Optimised Arduino" .blend > Object mode > Ctrl V to paste   (it should be pasted into the correct position) > Select the new "Pins" object then Shift select your partially  "Optimised " board object and use Ctrl J to join so that the pins will become part of the "Optimised" board.

Note that the exact position of pins/components will be determined when you have the top surface of the board mapped to a texture. They will need to be aligned to the solder pad positions of the texture on the board.

And you don't have to be very accurate in the dimensions of the pins. See the image below for a comparison between an actual reset switch pin relative size and the pin size in the original model.

 

The mistake that you made at the very beginning is that you should have made a copy of your original Arduino .blend file using the Save as option, then in this new file Object mode > Shft D to make a duplicate copy of the original board and worked on simplifying this copy. Doing it this way means you would still have the original board in the same .blend as your simplified board which would have been useful for when you make errors like this (deleting parts by mistake) You could easily copy and paste from original to simplified model.

Nothing to stop you now copying and pasting a copy of the original board object into this new file:

 

Thanks, I need it check this out. This will make drawing much easier.

Edited May 26, 2022 by IvyTechEngineer