Surfaces 2

[Poorpaulus]

I have an imported surface (automotive metal) which I am trying to cut down a little so that I can get a better look inside a cavity formed by what will be three panels coming together. As a bit of a newbie, I am having problems. Why can't I cut with surface? I have tried thickening the geometry to make it a solid, but no luck.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Paul.

 

[Poorpaulus]

I also should mention that everytime I try to trim the surface, it says that it can't because there is an error with the surface. However, I can't see anything in the feature manager and I have used the checking tools which show there are no errors.

 

[Rocko]

What Version of SW are you on. When you imported the Iges file did you activate the "Perform full entity check and repair errors" command in the import menu? Also try the TOOLS-CHECK command to see if any geometry errors are there.

 

[Poorpaulus]

I am using SW2004 2.1
I have ticked all of the check boxes. Still no good. It looks like I will have to take another look at how it was exported from it's original application (I-DEAS) to see if it can be improved.

Thanks,
Paul.

 

[Poorpaulus]

Would these errors result in the Extrude/Cut command to be greyed out?
All I need is a small section of the panel.

 

[Arlin]

You cannot cut a surface. It must be trimmed. First create your extrude profile, then extrude a surface, then use a surface trim.

You could also try a split line. This will split a surface into multiple surfaces. You can then either delete (prefered) or hide the unwanted surface body.

 

[DaveG16]

Take with several grains of salt, as I'm a SW newbie...

Are the converging panels part of the same surface?

If not, you might be able to hide your view-blocking surface, or make it a transparent material.

Or, is it possible to use the Section View?

Dave G.

 

[Rocko]

Arlin , i think he was trying to use the surface to cut a solid, i could be wrong. Also Ideas has always had terrible surface export. You could try a surface offset of a small amount and hopefully SW will make a valid surface to cut with.

 

[APPENG]

Dave,

It sounds like you are trying to cut a solid with an imported surface.

the deal is this when cutting with a surface:

1> the surface must be as big if not bigger than the block you are cutting from.

2 The surface must be free of imperfections that can usually accompany imported surface data.

3>The surface can not have any holes in it

4> the surface must not have any invalid geometry (faces) in it.

5> the surface must be one conituous surface (not broken into many faces in the Featuremanager)

in case number 1 above make sure that your block is not larger than the surface.

In case number 2 use your TOOLS/CHECK tool to analyze the surface to see if there are any imperfections. If there are any use the Diagnose tool to fix them. Right mouse on the surface in the feature manager, if you have more than one showing in the feature manager, any of them will do. Select "Diagnose" A property manager will come up and have two areas... one for gaps, and one for faces. Select diagnose on the gaps section first and if any come up in the results box select close all. In the faces then click "Diagnose" and wait for any invalid faces to appear.. if any do show up then click on repair and see if that fixes the problem

This should do the trick

Sometimes though the automatic repairs dont always work and you may have to use solidworks surfacing functionality to repair the surface yourself.

Hope that helps


Regards,
Jon
jgbena@yahoo.com

 

[Poorpaulus]

Well, that explains a few things - especially point no3. My geometry is full of holes. It is also many - many surfaces (over 1500).

I'll have another go at I-DEAS to see if it can export better.

Thanks everyone,
Paul.

 

[Poorpaulus]

An update for you all.
I made the surfaces into a solid before I exported them to an IGES format. This solved my problem.

SORTED!!!

Many thanks to everyone.