Corner Round Blend Surface Challenge

[design-engine]

here is the round tool doing something similar ... with transition. I have an addition to the t-spines exercise to post after I get a chance to upload it. same thing but doing three tubes together with all four part boundary surfaces.

Edited by: design-engine

 

[zpaolo]

I just did what you recommended in WF4 and it worked. A star for you

, lol. All this trouble to setup a corner blend with so many features, yet in SW you could do it in one using the edges and even make it Curvature Continuous.

Thank you I'm happy it helped. Anyway you can easily build the blend in one single feature using styling, and I think that in WF5 you can solve it using rounds. Besides, I doubt you can make curvature continuity if you start from "perfect" rounds, you should yous C2 fillets to start with.

Paolo

 

[design-engine]

wf5.0 has g2 rounds.

Did anyone upload the start part for the challenge?

My rounds version was done in WF4.0 but that works in WF2.0 as or even farther back maybe.
Edited by: design-engine

 

[jsantangelo]

Thank you I'm happy it helped. Anyway you can easily build the blend in one single feature using styling, and I think that in WF5 you can solve it using rounds. Besides, I doubt you can make curvature continuity if you start from "perfect" rounds, you should yous C2 fillets to start with.

Paolo

Upon further consideration this technique in Pro/e does yield a more parametric way to control the surface. By using a sketch to control the distance of the point for the tangent plane you can explore various shapes and forms just by dragging or modifying the value of the sketch length. This goes back to Bart's mantra of "its not how fast you model something but how fast you modify it 20 times"

Did anyone upload the start part for the challenge?

There is one on Page 1 in a post I edited. Here is the link to the file I uploaded.

2009-05-21_154104_WF4_impossible_corner.prt.zip

 

[zpaolo]

Upon further consideration this technique in Pro/e does yield a more parametric way to control the surface. By using a sketch to control the distance of the point for the tangent plane you can explore various shapes and forms just by dragging or modifying the value of the sketch length. This goes back to Bart's mantra of "its not how fast you model something but how fast you modify it 20 times"

And with "dynamic edit" in WF5 it's even funny

 

[design-engine]

i have other techniques for making a model robust that go far beyond dynamic edit ... which is cool by the way but i did not get so excited about it.

 

[jsantangelo]

Here's a video of what I was talking about above.

<div style="text-align: center;">http://www.screencast.com/t/DWbYHXXlQL7
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.screencast.com/t/DWbYHXXlQL7" target="_blank">

http://www.screencast.com/t/DWbYHXXlQL7
</a></div>

Thanks again to everyone who has commented on this.

I learned a lot through this exercise.

Cheers!

 

[zpaolo]

Just to add a little bit of fun, I changed the sketches of the cylindrical part to make them G2 fillets, after that I could force continuity on the BBs, here is the part for WF5.0


2009-05-23_075706_impossible_corner_cc.prt.zip

Paolo

 

[design-engine]

James,

You might not realize it, but you can drag that curve your modifying parametrically. This is apart of my proving form exercises offered to industrial designers and product design engineers. Double click on the sketched curve and drag the end with your mouse.

This is another drawback of solidworks that sw users don't even realize they miss. Ignorance is bliss with them.

 

[solidworm]

i got some really strange results using the new fill tool in isdx (WF5) on zapolo's model. anybody tried it?

 

[millmann2me]

Here's a way to build it with two 4-sided surfaces...make one large 4 sided surface, trim it back to leave 4 boundries to make the 2nd surface...hope the image makes sense. The surfaces are boundary blends. I tried it with Fill in SW with good results as well.
Edited by: millmann2me

 

[zpaolo]

i got some really strange results using the new fill tool in isdx (WF5) on zapolo's model. anybody tried it?

I tried with a style feature, building a surface from the edges. This works quite well in the original model from the thread, but with my version, with CC splines instead of arcs, it produces a strange "bulge" in the middle of the surface, and you can't force curvature continuity but only tangency.
Paolo

 

[dgs]

millmann2me - I've always been confused by that approach. It seems like the bottom curve for surf 1 dir 2 is a throw away. It's only there to establish tangency and provide a 4th boundary.

Once you drop the 2 curves on surf 1 to create the boundary of surf 2, that lower curve for surf 1 may bot even lie on the resulting quilt. I struggle with how the shape of that curve related to the final form and what I'm really after. It feels a bit like I'm throwing curves at it to see what Pro|E makes rather than designing with intention.

 

[millmann2me]

Hi Doug -

The bottom curve for srf 1 dir 2 is only .001" max off of surf 2, so in that sense you do have pretty good control over the form.

You are right that the bottom curve is essentially construction geometry. But, I was able to create this patch with 5 non style features (in addition to the posted geometry)...2 curves, one extrude and 2 boundary blends...or you could do it in one style feature which would take the same approach. In my experience, fewer patches/features gives you better control over the form. You can't solve this as one patch/surface using a boundary blend (assuming you want to stay away from the n-sided surface feature, which is good advice as of WF4), so 2 patches isn't bad.

This approach can be used to convert most 5 sided boundaries into two 4 sided patches/surfaces pretty predictably...although it takes a bit of practice and you may need a few more cross curves.

So, when I see a 5 sided boundary I just use this same approach every time and I have personally found it yields good results...your mileage may vary.


Edited by: millmann2me

 

[dgs]

I'm pretty confident in using surfaces, but this sort of build-a-partial-surface-and-patch-over technique is something I need to master. My mind thinks "build exactly what you want".

I want to make sure I understand the process.

<ul>[*]The lower srf1 dir2 curve is a curve through points and tangent at each end to the existing geometry, correct?[*]The curves projected onto surf1 to build surf2 - are they tangent where they meet the existing geometry? It doesn't look like it, but I would think they should be.[/list]Thanks.

 

[millmann2me]

Hi Doug -

Thanks for the reply...

Yes...the lower srf1 dir 2 curve is a curve thru points as is the curve on the center line.

The other 2 boundaries for srf2 can be created with just a trim of srf1 using extrude...or can be curves on surface...or projected curves...they don't need to be tangent since the outside boundaries of srf1 are tangent with the existing geometry where they meet.

I understand your thinking 100%..."build exactly what you want". I usually try to do exactly that. I spend almost all of my time just doing surfacing and nothing else. Most of the surfaces I create are from boundary blends or style with curves that can be tweaked, so you have exact and explicit control over all the boundaries...just as you say. This is a bit of a departure from that, but I have found it to be a good solution to topology where you have 3 or 5 sided boundaries. This method was used by all the old CDRS users before PTC bought CDRS and incorporated it as ISDX/Style.

 

[mgnt8]

Yep, you win. That's the best way to do it

 

[dgs]

I've been playing with this technique on the part from the thread about the SW fill command. There is a certain amount of finesse and intuition to getting the initial curve and the patch right so there aren't wrinkles.

I tried both with ISDX and without, ironically without seemed to produce more predictable results. The freedom if ISDX meant it was easy to over tweak the curves and generate odd bumps and ridges.

Interestingly, if you create the curves on surface as tangent to existing geometry, it seems to come out less smooth in the end.

Lesson here is keep it simple, don't over constrain, and try to 'feel' the flow' of the geometry when adding in the patch curves.

 

[mstols]

This can be done with one feature in ProE as well.


Click on INSERT, ADVANCED, Conic Surface and N sided Patch. Click on N-sided Surf option in menu. Click on Done.

Select the 6 edges. Click on OK done, OK

 

[mstols]

here is the WF4 file
2009-06-02_055234_prt0002.prt.zip