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Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Use Boundary Fill, Shell, and Split Body on geometry created in the Sculpt workspace.
Type:
Tutorial
Length:
5 min.
Transcript
00:04
Let's finish the concept model of the housing of the reciprocating saw
00:07
and see how we can sculpt surface and ultimately turn that body into a solid model
00:14
to continue the concept development of the front of our saw.
00:17
First, let's create a construction plane to build new geometry on.
00:23
You'll find a setting under grids and snaps that will turn on or off.
00:27
Incremental move,
00:29
incremental move will snap movements and translations to predetermined spacing
00:34
or to a relative snap distance based on the size and orientation of your model.
00:41
You can see that when I turn on incremental
00:43
move my work plane will snap to the nearest centimeter
00:48
with the construction plan created.
00:50
I will build a box on the work plane with the center point on the y axis.
00:59
We will use this geometry to start sculpting the front of our saw.
01:06
First,
01:07
I will apply mirror internal symmetry to make sure that
01:10
the left and right sides of my saw are symmetrical.
01:13
And once the symmetry is applied, I will start removing unwanted faces from the box.
01:20
I find it easy to start with primitive shapes,
01:22
but you can also start with a profile sketch and extrude a T
01:26
blind body as well.
01:28
Next, let's edit form to translate the geometry into position
01:32
and scale along the y axis to resize the height of the geometry you've created.
01:38
You might find that incremental move is too large
01:41
and it might be easier to toggle that off,
01:44
allowing you to be more precise.
01:53
Once you're satisfied with the location and scale of the new body
01:57
use alt on a PC or option on a Mac while in edit form to create a new set of faces
02:04
and finally scale the outer edge larger to create a fluted transition shape.
02:09
In your concept.
02:11
After over building additional faces which will trim back later,
02:15
you can see in our concept sketch that we have a sharp edge
02:18
that we want to create at the transition at the front of the saw
02:22
to build that sharp condition, double click on the edge loop
02:26
and in the modify menu or in the right click menu, select crease,
02:31
crease will remove the G two or smooth condition between those
02:35
faces and change it to a G zero or positional relationship.
02:41
Once you're satisfied with the shape of the front of the saw
02:44
use edit form to add three more faces and
02:48
leave room for one more set of faces to transition
02:53
from this point. I want to bridge between three open edges on each side.
02:58
But you may notice that the topology of our edges are not in line with each other.
03:02
Between the front and the back of my saw
03:05
bridging between them will create a transition surface
03:08
with a lot of undesired surface change.
03:13
Before I build that bridge,
03:14
I will edit the faces on both sides for a more even topology.
03:20
First. While adding some more crown to the front of the saw,
03:23
you'll see that I can move the pivot point to a new location for all manipulations
03:29
setting the pivot will become the new origin and location.
03:32
When you translate scale and rotate,
03:36
be sure to press the green arrow indicating that you are complete,
03:40
moving the pivot which will return back into edit mode
03:45
in the following session,
03:47
we will dive deeper into more tips and
03:49
techniques of controlling and refining your sculpted geometry.
03:56
For now,
03:57
I will just spend a minute aligning the three edges
03:59
on both sides to create a more uniform transition.
04:12
Once I'm satisfied with the alignment of my edges,
04:15
I'll use bridge to build a single span transition
04:18
between the six edges on the left
04:20
to the corresponding six edges on the right.
04:30
Finally, I'll build my bottom transitions
04:34
by first selecting the three edges and dragging out a new set of faces
04:38
and then I'll bridge between them on the two sides.
04:48
Toolbox is a great way to search for tools in the current workspace as well as pin,
04:54
your favorite tools.
04:57
You can open the shortcut toolbox by pressing S on the keyboard
05:01
and then easily search for a command and pin them for easy access. Later,
05:10
I'll build the bridge with two faces to ensure that
05:13
my topology is even between the bottom of the saw.
05:16
And then I will use weld vertices to close the surface of the saw.
05:28
Now,
05:29
we can sculpt in the rest of the foot of the saw to match
05:32
our concept and increase the stability while the saw is resting on a table.
05:41
Finally, it's time to transition what we have built to a solid model
05:45
with a little bit more effort.
05:47
I might refine my design and use additional faces or separate
05:50
bodies in the sculpt workspace to create a watertight body.
05:54
Instead,
05:55
I'm going to return from the sculpt workspace
05:58
by hitting finish form in the ribbon toolbar.
06:02
You can see that the geometry that I created in the
06:04
sculpt workspace is instantly turned into a surface if left open
06:09
and it would turn into a solid. If it was a closed body. When I exit,
06:15
I want to make the trimming surfaces for the bottom of the saw
06:19
to do that. I'll switch into the patch environment.
06:22
The patch environment is where you'll find surface creation tools like sweep
06:26
and loft as well as tools like boundary patch and stitch.
06:32
Let's create a sketch on the origin plane and sketch the profile for the
06:36
bottom of the saw that I want to trim back my surfaces with.
06:41
I'll use a line to ensure that the bottom of the saw is flat
06:45
and I'll create a spline coincident to the end point of the line
06:49
to create the profile underneath the handle.
06:52
After I add a tangent constraint between the line and the spline,
06:56
I can edit the points and handles to change the curvature.
07:09
Now, let's use the surface extrude to extrude a surface for the bottom of the saw.
07:14
I'll extrude the surface symmetric and make sure to overbuild the surface.
07:18
So I can cleanly trim the bottom of the saw
07:24
in the patch environment, you'll find surface trimming,
07:26
extend and offset to create and modify surfaces.
07:33
I'll create a construction plane to locate the front cutting
07:36
plane of the saw and then switch to the model workspace
07:42
in the model workspace.
07:43
We're going to use boundary fill to turn our geometry into a solid body.
07:50
Boundary fill will take an input of surfaces,
07:53
solid bodies and even construction planes and allow you to
07:56
turn that network of inputs into a solid body.
07:60
You'll see that once I select the two surfaces and the work
08:03
plane fusion indicates that the green preview is a closed boundary.
08:08
And after we select the cells that we want to
08:11
keep fusion will turn that sculpted body into a solid.
08:19
After turning off the surfaces and using a section analysis,
08:23
you can see the solid body for the saw housing created from our sculpted geometry.
08:29
Once we've created a solid body infusion, our work has just begun,
08:34
we can now leverage traditional parametric modeling tools and
08:37
workflows to start to make the shape manufactur.
08:41
For example,
08:42
I'll use the split body tool to split the
08:45
solid body with the origin plane of the model.
08:52
Next,
08:52
I'll use the shell command infusion to create a uniform wall thickness for
08:56
the housing of the right and the left side of the saw.
09:13
The last thing that we'll do in this example is create a sketch to cut a hole
09:17
in the front of the saw and allow the
09:19
blade to translate back and forth through the housing
09:38
in fusion.
09:38
The extrude command will default to body and component visibility,
09:43
making it easy to cut through the components and bodies that you want to.
09:49
You can see in the extreme dialogue,
09:51
I can control the affected bodies and components in
09:54
the objects to cut portion of the dialogue.
09:57
I'll deselect all of the components that are labeled from the blade holder assembly
10:02
and ensure that the new feature is only removing
10:04
geometry from the two bodies that represent the housing.
10:11
Finally, it's time to round trip and make some changes
10:15
in the timeline.
10:16
You'll find a feature for the sculpted body and all
10:18
of the features that were created since leaving the sculpt workspace
10:23
to edit the sculpted body.
10:25
Double click on the purple cube icon in the timeline
10:28
which will return you back into the Sculpt workspace.
10:32
You can now make edits to your original t
10:34
blind geometry, refine your design or try out new design alternatives,
10:39
knowing that the changes you make at this point in
10:41
the timeline can be consumed by all the downstream features.
10:50
Notice that after making a few changes and finishing the form,
10:54
the boundary fill split and shell features are all automatically updated.
Video transcript
00:04
Let's finish the concept model of the housing of the reciprocating saw
00:07
and see how we can sculpt surface and ultimately turn that body into a solid model
00:14
to continue the concept development of the front of our saw.
00:17
First, let's create a construction plane to build new geometry on.
00:23
You'll find a setting under grids and snaps that will turn on or off.
00:27
Incremental move,
00:29
incremental move will snap movements and translations to predetermined spacing
00:34
or to a relative snap distance based on the size and orientation of your model.
00:41
You can see that when I turn on incremental
00:43
move my work plane will snap to the nearest centimeter
00:48
with the construction plan created.
00:50
I will build a box on the work plane with the center point on the y axis.
00:59
We will use this geometry to start sculpting the front of our saw.
01:06
First,
01:07
I will apply mirror internal symmetry to make sure that
01:10
the left and right sides of my saw are symmetrical.
01:13
And once the symmetry is applied, I will start removing unwanted faces from the box.
01:20
I find it easy to start with primitive shapes,
01:22
but you can also start with a profile sketch and extrude a T
01:26
blind body as well.
01:28
Next, let's edit form to translate the geometry into position
01:32
and scale along the y axis to resize the height of the geometry you've created.
01:38
You might find that incremental move is too large
01:41
and it might be easier to toggle that off,
01:44
allowing you to be more precise.
01:53
Once you're satisfied with the location and scale of the new body
01:57
use alt on a PC or option on a Mac while in edit form to create a new set of faces
02:04
and finally scale the outer edge larger to create a fluted transition shape.
02:09
In your concept.
02:11
After over building additional faces which will trim back later,
02:15
you can see in our concept sketch that we have a sharp edge
02:18
that we want to create at the transition at the front of the saw
02:22
to build that sharp condition, double click on the edge loop
02:26
and in the modify menu or in the right click menu, select crease,
02:31
crease will remove the G two or smooth condition between those
02:35
faces and change it to a G zero or positional relationship.
02:41
Once you're satisfied with the shape of the front of the saw
02:44
use edit form to add three more faces and
02:48
leave room for one more set of faces to transition
02:53
from this point. I want to bridge between three open edges on each side.
02:58
But you may notice that the topology of our edges are not in line with each other.
03:02
Between the front and the back of my saw
03:05
bridging between them will create a transition surface
03:08
with a lot of undesired surface change.
03:13
Before I build that bridge,
03:14
I will edit the faces on both sides for a more even topology.
03:20
First. While adding some more crown to the front of the saw,
03:23
you'll see that I can move the pivot point to a new location for all manipulations
03:29
setting the pivot will become the new origin and location.
03:32
When you translate scale and rotate,
03:36
be sure to press the green arrow indicating that you are complete,
03:40
moving the pivot which will return back into edit mode
03:45
in the following session,
03:47
we will dive deeper into more tips and
03:49
techniques of controlling and refining your sculpted geometry.
03:56
For now,
03:57
I will just spend a minute aligning the three edges
03:59
on both sides to create a more uniform transition.
04:12
Once I'm satisfied with the alignment of my edges,
04:15
I'll use bridge to build a single span transition
04:18
between the six edges on the left
04:20
to the corresponding six edges on the right.
04:30
Finally, I'll build my bottom transitions
04:34
by first selecting the three edges and dragging out a new set of faces
04:38
and then I'll bridge between them on the two sides.
04:48
Toolbox is a great way to search for tools in the current workspace as well as pin,
04:54
your favorite tools.
04:57
You can open the shortcut toolbox by pressing S on the keyboard
05:01
and then easily search for a command and pin them for easy access. Later,
05:10
I'll build the bridge with two faces to ensure that
05:13
my topology is even between the bottom of the saw.
05:16
And then I will use weld vertices to close the surface of the saw.
05:28
Now,
05:29
we can sculpt in the rest of the foot of the saw to match
05:32
our concept and increase the stability while the saw is resting on a table.
05:41
Finally, it's time to transition what we have built to a solid model
05:45
with a little bit more effort.
05:47
I might refine my design and use additional faces or separate
05:50
bodies in the sculpt workspace to create a watertight body.
05:54
Instead,
05:55
I'm going to return from the sculpt workspace
05:58
by hitting finish form in the ribbon toolbar.
06:02
You can see that the geometry that I created in the
06:04
sculpt workspace is instantly turned into a surface if left open
06:09
and it would turn into a solid. If it was a closed body. When I exit,
06:15
I want to make the trimming surfaces for the bottom of the saw
06:19
to do that. I'll switch into the patch environment.
06:22
The patch environment is where you'll find surface creation tools like sweep
06:26
and loft as well as tools like boundary patch and stitch.
06:32
Let's create a sketch on the origin plane and sketch the profile for the
06:36
bottom of the saw that I want to trim back my surfaces with.
06:41
I'll use a line to ensure that the bottom of the saw is flat
06:45
and I'll create a spline coincident to the end point of the line
06:49
to create the profile underneath the handle.
06:52
After I add a tangent constraint between the line and the spline,
06:56
I can edit the points and handles to change the curvature.
07:09
Now, let's use the surface extrude to extrude a surface for the bottom of the saw.
07:14
I'll extrude the surface symmetric and make sure to overbuild the surface.
07:18
So I can cleanly trim the bottom of the saw
07:24
in the patch environment, you'll find surface trimming,
07:26
extend and offset to create and modify surfaces.
07:33
I'll create a construction plane to locate the front cutting
07:36
plane of the saw and then switch to the model workspace
07:42
in the model workspace.
07:43
We're going to use boundary fill to turn our geometry into a solid body.
07:50
Boundary fill will take an input of surfaces,
07:53
solid bodies and even construction planes and allow you to
07:56
turn that network of inputs into a solid body.
07:60
You'll see that once I select the two surfaces and the work
08:03
plane fusion indicates that the green preview is a closed boundary.
08:08
And after we select the cells that we want to
08:11
keep fusion will turn that sculpted body into a solid.
08:19
After turning off the surfaces and using a section analysis,
08:23
you can see the solid body for the saw housing created from our sculpted geometry.
08:29
Once we've created a solid body infusion, our work has just begun,
08:34
we can now leverage traditional parametric modeling tools and
08:37
workflows to start to make the shape manufactur.
08:41
For example,
08:42
I'll use the split body tool to split the
08:45
solid body with the origin plane of the model.
08:52
Next,
08:52
I'll use the shell command infusion to create a uniform wall thickness for
08:56
the housing of the right and the left side of the saw.
09:13
The last thing that we'll do in this example is create a sketch to cut a hole
09:17
in the front of the saw and allow the
09:19
blade to translate back and forth through the housing
09:38
in fusion.
09:38
The extrude command will default to body and component visibility,
09:43
making it easy to cut through the components and bodies that you want to.
09:49
You can see in the extreme dialogue,
09:51
I can control the affected bodies and components in
09:54
the objects to cut portion of the dialogue.
09:57
I'll deselect all of the components that are labeled from the blade holder assembly
10:02
and ensure that the new feature is only removing
10:04
geometry from the two bodies that represent the housing.
10:11
Finally, it's time to round trip and make some changes
10:15
in the timeline.
10:16
You'll find a feature for the sculpted body and all
10:18
of the features that were created since leaving the sculpt workspace
10:23
to edit the sculpted body.
10:25
Double click on the purple cube icon in the timeline
10:28
which will return you back into the Sculpt workspace.
10:32
You can now make edits to your original t
10:34
blind geometry, refine your design or try out new design alternatives,
10:39
knowing that the changes you make at this point in
10:41
the timeline can be consumed by all the downstream features.
10:50
Notice that after making a few changes and finishing the form,
10:54
the boundary fill split and shell features are all automatically updated.
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