Gap tool request or a suggested workaround

chaos_chord

Designing a consumer product would require you to do curve projection at least one time unless you are in search of an overall shape. When you do a cutout of a panel/surface in order to insert a piece it is wise to fillet the edges of both pieces for rendering purposes so it ends up looking more convincing but sometimes you really need a bigger gap between two panels/surfaces. This is where some sort of gap tool creation would come in handy just to interactively expand or resize the existing gap when you do curve projection. So far one of the workarounds has been to do offset of the cutout which gives you a leeway to do proper bigger filleting of the edges to close the gap (that way it looks more pronounced in the render). I am not aware of any other workarounds cause I'm lazy to do some creative thinking.

ArjunA_22390

Your approach is probably the most common way to achieve the result. However there is a new feature inside the rendering ribbon that lets you bevel edges without creating fillets.

Here you can control the angle and fillet radius to given an illusion of a fillet.

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ArjunA_22390

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chaos_chord

Thanks for the update. Render has been optimized quite a lot, it definitely has been the most underrated feature of Evolve like ever.

 

Big heads up for sketching tab. Don't want to hijack the thread here but I see many of surface tools are missing like various lofts including pipe, blend surface, metacurve, etc. Does anyone know if they are coming back in future updates?

ArjunA_22390

1. Almost all use cases of pipe are now supported with sweep. (except multiple paths that was allowed with pipe)
2. Blend surface - use loft
3. MetaCurve - a workaround is the sketch with fillet option. (no discussion on bringing back metacurve atm)

 

Mario_21478

Altair Forum User said:

1. Almost all use cases of pipe are now supported with sweep. (except multiple paths that was allowed with pipe)
2. Blend surface - use loft
3. MetaCurve - a workaround is the sketch with fillet option. (no discussion on bringing back metacurve atm)

 

Hello,

 

EVOLVE had a great 'Blend Surface' tool, I can't find it in Inspire Studio either.
I can't understand your hint 'use loft', can you please explain that?

 

Best Regards,

Mario

 

ArjunA_22390

Sorry Mario, i should have been clearer.

Blend = Loft with at least tangent continuity (may or may not be curvature).

So essentially using loft you can blend two edges and apply required continuity with greater control.

 

Unable to find an attachment - read this blog

Mario_21478

Thank you very much for your answer.

 

(... see update ...I understand that now, but I can't reproduce this.

In all cases the selectbox 'Constraint' always remains grey and cannot be changed.
This also happens if I want to select Rails (like in your video).)

 

Update:

It works only, if I finishing the Profile selection by right click.

Any other action (manualy switch to rail, close and reopen the Control Panel) will not work.

It seems it switch to an 'add vertices' mode.

 

 

Best Regards,

Mario

 

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ArjunA_22390

If you have no rail curves or edges, the constraint box is editable after selecting your profiles.

1. Select profile edges or curves
2. Right click
3. Edit the constraint / continuity type in the control panel
4. At this time the focus is lost from the guide bar since you clicked inside the control panel. 
5. Click the green check mark to complete the Loft.

If you find that the constraint option is locked, it is because no profiles or rails are currently selected in the edit mode.