Hi Art

The Surface and Solid modeling engine is based on ACIS which uses a same point tolerance of 0.00001. For profile based solids we added in some correction for very small gaps. We maybe need to look at this for covers as well.

The Join Curve will take two curves and merge into one and may change the continuity at the join. The Connect Curve moves one end point to another. If you send me the file (with just the boundary curves , no constructions etc) I can investigate the gap tolerances.

Tim

Hello Art
Thanks for the example file. I've updated the cover tool to show gaps as point entities. This is in build 1188.

In your example file, I'm not sure if Join is the right tool for this boundary. Join will take the two curves and create a single G2 curve, which will round out sharp corners. If the two curves have a discontinuity you need to preserve as in corner, you may want to look at the Connect tool.

Tim

The Connect Curve will move the second selected curve end point to the first selected curve end point. It is often used to fix small gaps. Not sure yet when 1188 will be ready for download. I'll post in beta forum when we do.

Attached image shows difference between Join and Connect.

Tim

Edited by user Monday, February 22, 2016 3:24:24 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Funny, I never used the connect curve tool, never knew what it was for.

I think you can't stress enough never to join curves that meet at an angle. Coming from Adobe Illustrator it's easy to have this idea that a square should be joined at the corners. It took me some time to get this thought out of my head.

All splines have a start and an end, even a circle. Sometimes it's hard to tell where the start and ends meet if you have a closed shape and even if you see it there may be an issue with several points overlaying each other. What I often do is to cut a spline into smaller bits. I may delete the area where the spline ends meet if the shape is closed and join the two parts that are the closest - this way they will connect and while the outline stays the same the point where start and end meet is effectively moved. Sorry if my explanation is difficult to understand.

Seeing your project in this and other threads you gave yourself a challenge that requires much discipline in keeping the outlines clean and understanding what will work with the tool and what will fail. Often you need to work around some issue, make a larger geometry and cut your part out of it, sometimes I go to Rhino to ajust a surface because it's easier than doing it the hard way. And sometimes, I have to admit, I change my design to something I know can make in 3d.

Claus

PS. it may help to understand how these surfaces are created, very often they consist of a larger surface that is masked by a boundry. You can see the untrimmed surface by using the "untrim" command. Sometimes it's useful to see what goes on behind the scene...

Edited by user Monday, February 22, 2016 3:40:00 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

>> have the Project Curve Plane and Project Curve Surface tools also been updated to eliminate/significantly reduce the source of the discontinuous curves?

Are you seeing two curves who share a connection on a surface producing a gap after a projection? If so, I would appreciate an example as that would be a bug.


Tim

Tim-

as posted earlier, I'm seeing a joined curve AND a single curve being projected onto a surface in pieces (one, two, and three to date). with one curve projected, I'm "expecting" one curve on the target surface (ie: NOT "N" pieces). even "N" pieces would be workable if the created "gaps" were flagged/identified/highlighted. those pieces when "joined" occasionally have "gaps" (ie: one or more I couldn't see)!! your answer and examples relating to the latest posted example lead me to conclude the "gap" was in the corner. if so, that case would be the exception to what I'm seeing most of the time. the last post was the first time I attempted to joint curves out-of-plane (ie: a corner).........

Art
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Hi Art

Can you post that file? Just to make sure I understand, are you projecting curves onto a surface, then using the projected curves to create a new cover surface?

Tim

Claus-

thanks for your thoughts and observations; your "untrim" idea has been filed away for a rainy day!! while not obvious, the "learn-by-doing" project is a watered down subset of my real geometry. the number of surfaces used to generate the boundary splines is half what I intend to use AND the base surface actually has curvature in two directions (only one used). a number of your ideas are already included; the base for instance is actually "below" the surface of the mating part to "hide/eliminate" all of the mating surface interface complexities (ie: trim-able). everything done so far was expected to require serious attention to detail and some learning for sure, but not the encountered nightmare. the rate of learning isn't what it might be when things don't operate as expected. new and/or infrequent users also put extreme "stress" on software documentation and the documentation's "ease of use"! the "hard part" was expected to be be joining three surfaces AND getting the slopes right along the interfaces; that hasn't even been attempted yet............... still looking for a means to copy 3D objects between layers (preferably in the same location and orientation in 3D space) and end-up with independent instances of the same object. all of the points and their resulting splines (now joined into the two boundaries shown) are also parts of the leading/trailing edge boundary needed to create the third surface. then there's the small matter of transforming the surface to a solid that can be 5-axis milled........

Art
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Art,

tried to make a test of what is bugging you, the attached show a curved surface with a 3 point ellipse projected. As you see when the ellipse touch the boundries of the surface the resulting projected curve gets broken up. However if the ellipse is smaller, like in the example below, the result is a single curve. Maybe I misunderstand what you try to achieve.

Claus

Claus-

thanks, I'll check the paste options.

when the target surface is extended and the source curve is displaced, is the resulting "projected curve" continuous (ie: NO gaps) and will support use of Cover Guided Surface?? if continuous, will the additional constraints (ie: projected curve can not coincide with a surface boundary AND source curve and projected curve can not share any points) be added to the tool documentation or the tool(s) updated?? given current tool documentation, I don't see that something "out-of-bounds" was being attempted.................

Art
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