Can anyone share what the difference is between these two tools?

Thank you.


edit (reason for question):

I had three adjacent surfaces and used Add Surface for the first two, but when I used Add Surface for the third one, it deleted it.

Tried Join Surface and it worked.

Edited by user Monday, July 8, 2019 12:59:03 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thank you! Been working with a lot of sheet metal lately and have found using the surface tools are a good way to develop the initial geometry.

nice work on your site btw! may I ask if you use any other 3d modelers besides Shark/VC?

Edited by user Tuesday, July 9, 2019 1:23:24 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

The thing I would like to see is something I've never seen in any CAD program is the ability to work with photo-etchings. With these, all bends are made at a groove in the metal, with the groove slightly wider than the thickness of the metal. When the bend is made the radius of the outer bend is roughly half the metal thickness and the two edges of the groove meet on the inside.

Most people I know use 2D vector packages as they make producing separations for the front and back etching tools easier, but being able to design in 3D and unfold it, would hopefully eliminate the all too frequent out-by-a-thickness-of-metal errors.

I've been dreaming of software that would this way for the last 40 years, but I have to admit that most of my present work uses 3D printing.

Edited by user Wednesday, September 18, 2019 1:51:57 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Bend lines/centreline. TurboCAD had unbend from about V14 but didn't give bend centrelines or the edges of the bend material until V22/2015. If you're familiar with bending/unbending it's not a show-stopper, but it did irritate, and IMSI didn't really call them "sheet metal" tools or advertise that, just calling them unbend. I see from reading a SW tutorial that SolidWorks gets bend lines from an option of "merge solids" from the unbending, it considers the planar sections of the part to be unbent to be discrete to the bend material and represents their edges.
I think it'd be a bonus if sheet metal tools have simultaneous interactive neutral depth and K-factor data entry, ie if you've got a K-factor for your material, enter that in the data box, the program correlates that to your sheet thickness and returns the neutral depth. If you don't have K-factor, enter a neutral depth from the bend outer side and the program gives you a K-factor.