Fillet Hilite (face for hilite)

[roughwood]

With fillet hilite from what I gather, the hilite is just a surface made with 2 curves to which the center portion of the conic is made tangent. I also assume that this surface is just made simply by bridging the gap directy between those curves, and does not have any "3D" surfacing (curved cross section). Kind of like a Ruled surface?

What if you want to make a C2-3 (or just tangent for that matter) blend to 3 surfaces? You can make a fillet to 3 curves, and a conic can be defined defined by 3 faces and tangents in my mind. I have not found the need for this yet, but say you have a 3D complex surface you want to use as the hilite. Is this possible in geometric theory? Also is this possible in UG? Id think its possible in theory but I have yet to execute this in UG. Does anyone know how to do this in UG?

Also to NK, I'd think you do some pretty complex Class A surfacing by what i've observed in these forums. Could you share some of your favorite or most usefull modeling commands, and what you use them for? Also I have a tough time making good associative arrays for wheels, can you share your method?

Cheers

Keith Young
keith.a.young@comcast.net
Walway Enterprises
UG Tool Design

 

[Xwheelguy]

Keith,

First off, by fillet hilite, I'm assuming you're meaning the Free Form Feature called Section & Fillet Hilite being the type of Section you're wanting to create? If so, then you are correct in saying that you can't use that particular command to make a surface that has continuity to more than 2 bounding surfaces...as Section is USUALLY using only 2 strings to define the surface edges (spine & shoulder strings are used, but that is more of a shape control versus edge control).

My overall advice for surfacing in general is to try out a Shape Studio license & see how you like that. I feel the Studio Surfaces are much more friendly than most of the Free Form Features & there are some slick tools (like Curve on Surface, Match Edge, X-Form, Styled Blend & Styled Corner) that will really help out in the long run. See UG documentation in NX2 for further details on what those items can do. Also, as far as I know, Match Edge & Styled Blend are the only modeling tools that support up to G3 continuity in UG.

Now back to your original question of making a G1 or G2 "transition" surface or "styled corner" between 3 boundary faces. I do this all the time & about the only way I know of to do it is to use either the edges of the right & left sides as strings or curves projected on the right & left bounding faces & bridge curves for the remaining top & bottom strings. Bridge curves can't be G3, so your surface can't be G3 in that direction (top and bottom). Think of this in terms of a block with 3 face blends that aren't trimmed & attached to the solid. Created the curves needed for the boundaries & go from there.

The command I use is Studio Surface 2x2, but with just Free Form Features, you might be able to obtain the same results with a Through Curve Mesh. This surface is 4 sided, but just don't assign continuity to the 4th side that doesn't need it.

It's a little difficult to explain without the assistance of images. See if you can find out how Styled Corner works in Studio & then you might understand what I'm talking about.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

 

[roughwood]

I am not finding styled corner in NX1 doc, my NX2 doc isnt working, and since im not fortunate enough to have no luck at all, I will guess it is new in NX2. I will say these tools look quite nice. I am sure our small young shop cannot justify getting this package unfortunately. I'd love to learn it as I am sure many aerospace companies use this package.

Bridge curves can make G3 if you choose the high stiffness option am I right? So through curves mesh isnt powerful enough to keep the area between the section curves G3? All this time I figured if I did a high stiffness bridge I could make a G3 surface. I really need to drop a few grand on some classes.

G3 is the acceleration of curvature, meaning a curve's comb would not only meet that of the last curve (have the same curvature) but the comb's edge would also be tangent to it the last curves comb (the curvature accelerates away rather than instantly changes) am I right? I hope you can understand that jibberish.

It does sound though, like this styled corner would do the trick. I was just somewhat suprised to see so many section commands and yet they'd skip that one which seems geometrically possible to me.

Keith Young
keith.a.young@comcast.net
Walway Enterprises
UG Tool Design

 

[Xwheelguy]

Studio for Design includes all the Features, Freeform Features, Assemblies, Drafting, UDF, Translators that an Advanced Designer bundle has plus everything for Shape Studio (Freeform Shape, Visualize Shape & Analyze Shape). I think it's under 10,000 or at least it was the first year it came out, when we purchased it.

Regarding Bridge Curves, they are able to make G3 continuity but there are no Freeform Features that support G3 continuity. Just because your curves meet a certain continuity doesn't mean that your surfaces will snap to that continuity. In UG, you must assign those as boundary constraints (even in Shape Studio). Personally, I feel that G3 is a bit excessive for most applications, but I can see the necessity in aerospace, etc....automotive MAYBE on occasion.

I've found that more often than not, if you spend your time making high quality 3 & 5 degree curves with as few segments as possible, then you will increase your chances of creating high quality surfaces regardless of the continuity.

I am only guessing, but with Section commands, you can't assign continuity to a 3rd face because you're not inputting 3 strings. You're only truly defining U or V, not both (at least with a TRUE string profile).

Styled corner would do the trick, but it would do it on 4 sides. I'm not sure if it will work using only 3 sides. The bad thing about it is that it only works on surfaces & not solids. If you want to apply those surface to a solid, you either have to use Patch or Trim Body.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com

 

[Xwheelguy]

You can find What's New Guides at the UGS GTAC support site. You will need a valid webkey account in order to utilize their offerings, which also includes a bulletin board similar to this one, but aimed only at UGS-related products.

Tim Flater
Senior Designer
Enkei America, Inc.

http://www.enkei.com