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Surfacing & thickening question

Surfacing & thickening question

Surfacing & thickening question

(OP)
I've been working with surfaces a lot lately and was wondering if there is some advice about how to help prevent the "Thicken" feature from failing.

I am creating surfaces from point cloud data by means of lofts and sweeps.  I do get waffling surfaces, but they are generally acceptable for my needs.

This is where the problem arrives.  Is it because the waffling is hard to interpret?  I also cannot offset the surface.  "Move/Copy body" will function as a work around, though I don't think that the functions are related.

Any suggestions?

Christopher Zona - Product Designer
Concord, Ontario

RE: Surfacing & thickening question

How thick do you need your surfaces?

You mentioned "waffling" of the surface you've generated from the point data.  If you have a wrinkle or small-radius area of your surface, you need to be careful the thickened surface doesn't collide with itself--or the thicken feature will fail.

Is it feasible to rework your surface to get rid of small anomalies like that?

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe trumps reason.

RE: Surfacing & thickening question

This touches on some offset and thickening issues.
thread559-158709

RFUS

RE: Surfacing & thickening question

The waffling is creating regions of the surface with a smaller radius of curvature than your offset.  Show curvature via view->display->curvature.  You will need to address these areas by tweaking your points or recreating the surface.

-b

RE: Surfacing & thickening question

(OP)
Jeff, et al,

Thanks for mentioning the colliding.  That is what's happening.  After re-evaluating my application of the surfaces, it is not important that the surface is waffling.

I'm building a mock-up envirnment to check for clearances.  My tolerance range is about ± 1/4".  The minor surface variation that I am getting is less than 0.25mm.

But, I would agree, the colliding is preventing the thickening.

Thanks to all for the input.  I'll stash it my bag of tricks for some other day to make me look smart.

Christopher Zona - Product Designer
Concord, Ontario

RE: Surfacing & thickening question

Generally there are two things that make offsetting surfaces fail.

1) The edges don't trim in the same way as the non-offset surfaces.  Examples are small surfaces that are consumed, and corners where 4 edges meet.
2) The surface self-intersects.  This is caused by a surface having a radius of curvature that is smaller than the offset.  Think of offsetting an hourglass shaped surface and you get the idea.  If you offset by more than the radius of curvature in the necked down region it will self-intersect.

The total deviation of your waffling is not the issue, it's the local radius of curvature that will produce a problem.  

-b



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