Surfacing - What's it used for?

[Stripper2]

While spending some time surfing the menus I was looking at the surfacing tools and I realize that I've never known what people do with surfaces.

What are some of the practical applications of surfacing?

 

[MadMango]

Surfaces let you define organic shapes, or shapes that are not straight or angular.

Think of:
molds for atheltic shoe soles
frame designs for sunglasses
designer product bottles
toy products from cartoon characters
exterior cases of consumer goods- vacuums, kitchen items, printers.


[green]"But what... is it good for?"[/green]
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[Stripper2]

OK, I get that part. But then, what do you do with the surface? Is it something that you run through a CAM program in order to create the part?

 

[TheTick]

Generally, surface are knit together into solids. Some ways to form a solid with surface:
•thicken
•cut with surface
•replace face

 

[SBaugh]

Surfaces are good for Molding, free formed shapes, help in repairing imported models, etc... There are something that you just can't make in Solid modeling. I used to feel different about that until I learned surfacing and now I can't live without it.

The Surface is done at the part stage. Why go through a CAM package when you have the ability to make a surface right there in SW? If I missed that question about CAM please exaplin further.

You can see some free form surface models turn into solid models @ faq559-520 - The first portion of that. Also see these Desktop images that I made to show you some more surfaces. Checkout the mask. That was done all in surfaces and transformed to a part.

http://www.scottjbaugh.com/Desktop images/Bionicle Image1.jpg

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376