Hi N.T.FLA
Just wondering if you have the Power Pack add on?
It seems to be a set of tools that could make life easier for your type of project.
Power pack page

I think I have messed around with it. I will look at it more in depth this week. Thanks.

Hey murray...I did find I needed to create a duplicate surface(s) to get it all to work out. Seems a bit laborious to get to a solution.

One of the things that attracted me to Shark in the first place is the licenses for CATIA and Pro/E, plus SW and Parasolid in V10, no history but that's no great problem. I'm a long-time TurboCAD user, and long ago they offered import/export plugins for CATIA/Pro/E to TurboCAD....at USD 1000. Don't know how many of those they sold, but none of them were to me, so there's some obvious value to me, at least! Then there's the PowerPack facet-to-analytic and facet-to-nurb, cause I often get given .stl or .objs and get asked whether they can be scaled without obvious faceting or if I can derive hole centres, radial or geometric and similar relationships from them. Nothing for additional feature relationships internally, but imports and interops, and for freeforms. More utilities than creative tools.

Just a hour or so tonight...Wife wants a date night. I guess it would be wise choose her over the Mustang! :o)

Wise decision !

So are you a former Holden guy ? Presumably still in Melbourne ?

So -

... but - why would you 'join' the surfaces before blending ? That's bound to bring you distortion as one lies at 90deg to it's counterpart

You could :

1 - Use the 'Fillet Surface' tool to provide a 'tangent continuous' or 'curvature continuous' blend (with option to auto-trim)

2 - Better still, the 'Loft Surface' (If you've left a gap where you want the fillet blend) tool which allows you to control the influence (Bulge) of surface A and surface B to your new surface blend (controlled continuity) - allows you even to add guides

3 - Personally though I'd treat this component quite independently and stitch it into a solid. You can then blend to your heart's content with thumbwheel blends (which you can control very easily and nicely - with perfect continuity).

Not sure if any of that helps - but I hope you got dessert !

Jol

(No - the power pack won't help you with this - but it's got some great extras ... should you survive this project !)

Edited by user Thursday, February 1, 2018 7:54:28 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Do you mind sharing the air dam bit of your model ?

I - like you - really like getting to the bottom of things if I can - and looking at it ... I think there should be an easy answer here

of course there are always workarounds

.. but a simple fillet blend should run round there fine, ??

Jol

PS - Another way would be to stitch the 2 surfaces into an 'open' solid (untick closed volume required - note one sided display facets) ... and then just use the solid thumbwheel blend. Not sure this method would be good for workflow as you then need to 'change object type' to surfs again - but it's interesting !

Edited by user Thursday, February 1, 2018 12:00:46 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Hmm ... curious about this 'joining'

Maybe it's terminology ?

... All you need is a common edge, no ?

Anyway - it's not holding you back !

Jol

Jol,

I take it all back. I tried the stitch solid again but flipped the normals prior to the stitch then added the G2 radius and it went in. No surprise to you, I know! You have been saying that all along. I will add images in a few minutes.

Thanks,

Dean

Addition: But the "Change Object Type" turns it into a set of Dumb-Dumb surfaces, eh? Seems like a huge price to pay for a couple radii. I guess it makes sense to wait and try to add all the rads after the solid is created then?

Addition 2: So it would seem I am no closer to the goal. I cannot thicken a solid stitched with "no closed solid required". Then even after changing the object type and getting back to surfaces (that are dumb) when I join the surfaces back together they morph into something other than what they seem to be. Is there an auto "smoothness" or "interpolate" setting I can un-tick? The surfaces are definitely changing with the use of the join.

This is the proverbial "painted myself into a corner" scenario.

Edited by user Thursday, February 1, 2018 3:27:29 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Hi Dean

I would say the mirrored geometry is probably the same as your original

Also - Linked mirror is sometimes very useful - (has anomolies / can trip over sometimes) - Perhaps view your 'off-side' as something you generate (or make visible via layers) when you need to to keep your geometry lighter. (see 4. below)

1.) Probably, the display facet triangles that convert the geometry to visible 'skin' are arranged in such a way as to fool your eye into seeing a fault or at least seeing a small fault bigger

2.) First try upping the custom 'high resolution' in the prefs

3.) Then try turning on 'Precise Facets' in Edit>Resolution

This alone will likely give you much cleaner display facets (albeit much slower - so do remember to turn it off when you're working normally)

If you are using a Zebra Envmap to see striped reflections - always go to precise facets first (if your graphics card can tolerate it) - Personally I think going to View>Surface Eval>XXX should automatically turn on 'Precise Facets' as it makes such a big difference

(Additionally, make your own simple straight-striped envmap - such that pixels can never be seen - I can send you one if you wish. It won't be better in all circumstances, but in most, you'll get clean Zebras)

If you still have a problem, try rebuilding the surface ('Rebuild Surface' tool)

4.) Finally, you can examine the display facets to see if there's a faceting error by doing this ... View>Shade Options>Display Facet Edges

It's worth noting how the visible display facet triangles change as you up the object's display resolution and toggle the Precise Facets button

Hope something there helps