Forces all surface normals to point in one direction.
Prepare a model for import into CAD systems
Modifies a collection of patches so that all normals across a set of adjacent surfaces point in the same direction. This helps to ensure that lighting is correct in renderings, and is also useful when modeling, and offsetting surfaces.
Construction history is preserved during this operation.
To unify the normal direction on a number of surfaces
.
You are prompted to:
Select input surfaces. When finished, click ‘Classify’.
Based on the Topology Distance tolerance value
(set in Preferences > Construction Options
, under the Tolerances:
Topology sub-tab), the surfaces are grouped into sets of
adjacent patches. Each set consists of those surface patches that
are within the Topology Distance tolerance.
The sets are drawn in different colors to help differentiate them.
An arrow shows the direction of the unified surface normal on each set. To change the direction of the surface normal, click on it.
You can continue changing normal directions, then clicking Unify again, until you select another tool.
Unify Surface Orientation is a continuous function. To finish using this tool, select another tool.
Creates new cubic B-spline (degree 3) curves/surfaces from linear (degree 1) geometry, such as digitized or imported CAD data.
Converting linear geometry to cubic
Create new cubic B-spline (degree 3) curves/surfaces from linear (degree 1) geometry, such as digitized or imported CAD data.
To create cubic b-spline objects from linear objects
Fit b-spline creates new cubic b-spline curves that fit the original linear geometry, and unpicks the originals.
Create a potentially less accurate curve, but reduce complexity.
Create a perfectly accurate curve, but with no reduction in complexity.
For example, if the original linear curve has 56 edit points, the new cubic b-spline will also have 56 edit points.
To see the difference in curve quality produced by these two types, turn on Curve curvature.
Choose either Circle or Cubic for two different ways of setting the end tangents. The default is Cubic.
Click this option if you know the exact values of the end tangent vectors that you want the fitted cubic geometry to have. Twelve slider fields are displayed.
Acceptable deviance between original and new curve/surface. The default is 0.010 cm. Only Used when Fit Type is Fit.
These options appear when End Tangents is set to Specify.
These four fields allow you to specify the exact (X,Y,Z) components of the end tangent vectors of the fitted curve or surface.
Only Start U Tangent and End U Tangent are used for curves.
This option controls the type of curve parameterization used by the new cubic b-spline objects.
Enforce a ratio between the height of the curve off the chord (a line connecting two consecutive edit points) and the chord length. Where the ratio is exceeded, new edit points are added to the new curve.
Use this option to break up long or high-curvature spans of the original surface into shorter, simpler spans.
This option appears when Chord Ht Ratio is on.
The factor by which the height must exceed the chord length before Fit b-spline adds new edit points.
For example, if the Ratio Value is 10.000, the height must be ten times the chord length before additional edit points are created. The lower the value, the more edit points will be added in high curvature areas.
