expand tool used for extruding up to surf

[cityjack]

Good morning all,

I am trying to extrude a simple sketch up to a few different tangent surfs. Kind of like an extrude up to surf. but only there are a few different surfs and they are all tangent. Solid works has a "up to body" choice which is excatly what I need. Any suggestions? I was told by PTC the "Expand" tool is what I need. I cannot seem to figure this out. Thanks.

Sid

 

[mjcole_ptc]

I can tell you right now that some dummbasss at PTC gave you the wrong option but the right tool. Did they even tell you how to access Expand? It's on the Offset Surface tool but it requires a depth in a direction to be specified and works poorly. This may not even be necessary depending on how your surfaces look.

You can extrude up to the surfaces but if the Tangent Surfaces you are talking about are on separate features you must merge them into a single surface by Selecting them as Quilts in order they were created and Use the Edit Merge Tool until they are all joined and when you hover over either Individual surface of the Merged Quilt they all highlight and show the same Feature Number which in my picture is that of the first feature selected for the Merge.

Whenever two (or more in WF4 ) quilts are selected for a merge the feature number of the first selected will be kept for both. My model's first surface of the 3 tangent was Feat6.

Once you have the surfaces merged you can use them as an upto reference for your extrusion.

If this doesn't work you have two options extrude feature to a height under or over the surface you want and Use Replace Surf described below or extrude past the surface and create a Cut by selecting the Quilt and doing a Solidify Surface cut.
Cut Excess Vs. Replace Surface I prefer the earlier option shown by link.

If the upto option still does not work with the extrude after the merge, then try the following which I believe the PTC nimbwit was refering to.

REPLACE NOT EXPAND
Replace not Expand_link

View attachment 4343

You need to use the Offset Tool select the top of the surface of the solid extrusion that you want to extend or clip to the tangent surfaces.
Hit the Offset tool on the Edit Menu or Toolbar.
Right click and select Replace from the pop-up menu or select the Replace option which has an icon with a squigilly blue surface on it.
Then select the Surface you want to replace the blind depth height.
SOLIDIFY SURFACE CUT

View attachment 4344

Michael

 

[cityjack]

Yeah Mike,

I'm a big fan of the replace tool. Maybe too much so. That was my first stab but of course, no go. I will try the merge option. That seems a little more in tune with where I was hoping to go. Once again, thank you Mike.

Sid

 

[design-engine]

mjcole_ptc

Do we know each other? We must have worked together someplace!

 

[magneplanar]

cityjack,

Perhaps I am way off, but maybe you can do this with a simple solid extrude?

If I choose to extrude a solid using a sketch and choose the two options of "to selected", I can choose planes or surfaces as the two boundaries. The boundaries can be on one side or both sides of the sketch datum.

View attachment 4346

this would not work as a surface but then you can merge the surfaces later.

just a thought...

cheers,

M

 

[mjcole_ptc]

mjcole_ptc

Do we know each other? We must have worked together someplace!

design-engine,


What makes you say that? I know your Name and heard a lot of good things about your courses in this and the other forums I've seen you participate in.


I don't believe I ever worked with
you. I live in Boston now and have only been to Chicago to visit my
brother when he lived in Cicero. But I believe we both have similar
interests and desire to know as much about as many tools as possible. I
worked at PTC in the QA group as a co-op in both the old Waltham
building and the New Needham HQ when I was at BU.



I have never taken training classes other than the ones I took when I
was at PTC and prefer to teach the software to myself and not rely on
others for update training. I find it unnecessary because I enjoy
picking apart and learning different softwares by trying new things.

I
would highly suggest that people who want to learn more about CAD (or like to Bitchh about it) especially students, should spend at
least some time doing Tech Support or Training work for one of the
software companies to understand all the work that goes on behind the
scenes.


Michael

I appreciate hearing your opinions from time to time and it helps to have a Pro/E user in a solid works forum because we all have similar issues with differences in other softwares.

 

[mjcole_ptc]

Solid works has a "up to body" choice which is excatly what I need.

Sid

Sid
Pro/E's equivalent to Upto Body in SW is Thru Next (the highlighted option in the picture) which will extrude upto the next Solid Geometry or through the Existing Solid Geometry until it hits an open space. Option 6 below is most similar to Upto Vertex option in SW.

View attachment 4347

Options in pic above from top to bottom
1. Blind Depth
2. Mid-Plane or Symmetric Blind Depth
3. Thru Next only works when Solid Geometry exists in that direction. *
4. Thru All
5. Extrude to intersect with surface *
6. Thru point, curve, plane, surface. Surface actually means surface for this one.
* It should say Solid Surface not surface in the command help text


These 6 options are only available for Solid Geometry and will not recognize a surface as a Thru Next Reference. Surface features only give you depth options 1, 2 And 6.

Extrude Thru Intersect with Surface option, Option 5 which looks like a slanted bottom hole only lets you select surfaces of solid features for reference.

Michael

Edited by: mjcole_ptc