Facet bodies

[NXMold]

I'm looking for some general info regarding facet bodies from people who have worked with them. I may need to do some modeling soon based on imported STL data, what tools does NX5 offer to work with this data? Can you section it, smooth it, patch holes, and use it to create proper surfaces and solid models? It looks like you'd need a studio free form license, anything else?

I have another CAD package for this but would like to try out NX, see what it can do.

 

[hudson888]

Yes you can section it and smooth the curves. Are you reverse engineering a part for function or appearance?

For appearance purposes, like anything you'll need to pick the slabs from the radii if you want to define discrete faces, which you'll need to do if you intend to have a smoothly surfaced part with highlights in all the right places.

If it is for function then NX also comes into its own if you use chunky solids techniques to identify flat faces and carve out the elements from larger blocks, as one example of how you might tackle some parts.

Sounds like you'll have some interesting work ahead

Regards

Hudson

 

[NXMold]

Yes, interesting indeed. This is something I have not done before, working with scan data. I was browsing the help files yesterday and see some interesting tools for this but currently do not have a studio free form license.

Seem that I cannot do much, if anything, with a facet body without that license? I might try a point cloud.

 

[hudson888]

Point clouds need a rectangular boundary in order to work. One technique with areas of irregular shape is to isolate the points that you want to use, then add on e pint in space for each of four corners outlying the field of data points, by manipulating their location you can better control the result.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[Xwheelguy]

Rapid Surfacing command (found in Shape Studio/Freeform Shape/Studio Freeform, whatever they're calling it today) seems to be directly aimed at working with faceted bodies. Based on the Help on Context results when I have the Rapid Surfacing dialog open, it says:

"The Rapid Surfacing command reverse engineers a facet body quickly, where speed is more important than surface quality. You specify the desired degrees and segments, and create a curve network on the facet body. NX uses this curve network to generate a G1 continuous surface model of the facet body."

Used in combination with Match Edge, Snip, Pole Smoothing, Refit Face and Shape by Template, I would imagine you could reverse engineer your part pretty accurately.

Might be worth looking into if this is the kind of work you'll be doing in the future. There are also other commands available that you might find handy for other modeling tasks.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

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