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I'm trying to model a sign with a complex, rounded face. The idea is to imitate the look of Neon tubes. The shape comes from an svg file. I was able to extrude it and convert to mesh. Now I want round out the upper face. I've tried the bevel tool, but I'm guessing the shape is too complex for blender to bevel it for me. Either it doesn't work at all, or it produces some gnarly results, or only some of the selected edges get beveled. In an effort to get this working, I've tried to clean up the mesh to help out the bevel tool. Limited dissolve seemed to remove the most geometry while keeping the shape consistent. I've also tried adding a bevel along with the extrude in the path geometry, but that bevel increases the width of the path instead of rounding the face.

I hope this image makes it a bit more clear, ideally the top face of all these pieces should be rounded out. The end goal is to export this back to an stl file and have a cnc router cut this shape out of clear acrylic.

Shape Overview

This is the incorrect bevel I was talking about. I've tried selecting the top face, and selecting the edges, and the result is always something like this where only some of the edges get beveled:

Incorrect Bevel

and using the path geometry bevel doesn't get what I need either. It keeps a flat face and adds an extra rounded corner, but I want the entire face to be round and I don't want the width to be increased:

Path Geometry Bevel

here's the SVG I'm using. A bit of explanation, stack exchange doesn't support uploading SVG images, so this is a link to the text of the SVG. If you save this text as an SVG file it will work.

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  • $\begingroup$ it is not to complex for blender to bevel that, beveling just needs "clean topology". Yours has "wild" triangles which is very bad for bevelling. Try creating clean quads and bevelling will work like a charm. if your provide the svg file i can help you do that. $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Nov 10 at 18:50
  • $\begingroup$ Okay, I've added a link to the svg in text form to the post. $\endgroup$
    – The Mungler
    Nov 10 at 19:15
  • $\begingroup$ I'm having trouble getting that SVG file, the link is not to the image itself, please consider sharing your .blend file blend-exchange.com $\endgroup$
    – Psyonic
    Nov 10 at 23:40
  • $\begingroup$ Sorry, that was the simplest way I could think to share the SVG, as stack exchange does not support uploading SVG images. If you copy that text into any text editor then save it as an SVG it will work. Sorry, should have made that more clear, my background is in software development and forget that most people don't know SVG is just a fancy XML text document under the hood. $\endgroup$
    – The Mungler
    Nov 11 at 0:51

1 Answer 1

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The corners have too many vertices which overlap.
You'll have to manually adjust the geometry.

Optional steps before you start:
(1)Lower curve resolution for simpler geometry, and convert to mesh
(2)Use Limited Dissolve on converted mesh to remove excess geometry

  1. Select boundary edges and add Bevel Weight = 1
  2. Add Solidify Modifier to get geometry that can be beveled
  3. Add Bevel Modifier limited to Weight, to get a preview of final result
  4. Manually add/remove/move corner vertices to avoid overlapping

Smaller curve resolution will make the work easier enter image description here

Use Bevel Weight with Bevel modifier to only bevel boundary edges enter image description here

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