Fillets are hard in 2004

I have a filleting problem I am trying to understand.
I have a flat-sided arc that ends in a flat face; its top & bottom are
full-radiussed.

Abutting it squarely is a circular solid arc (it arcs the opposite
direction as the 1st arc, above). The big piece is a little over twice
as tall as it is wide. This circular piece is equal width as the 1st,
but I see this is inviting a runout condition which may be an
additional complication I don't need here. I have reduced its diameter
..001 on each side to help the filleting command. It is now .048
diameter. Both arcs are sweeps.

How come I can't get anything to fillet that butt-joint?
I try variable radius, face-fillet, etc., but all give me errors.

I would loft this thing, but I have no sketching plane to work on,
since the circular section is an arc itself, and has no orthography,
except its two ends.

Seems to be a class of problems like this SW is very finicky about. Can
anyone tell me how to smooth that big, clumsy step between the two
sweeps? Thanks so much - i feel good that this is a commonly
encountered issue and someone in here has a comfortable method (I hope).

 

You could post a pic at

http://www.imageshack.us/

might help.

 

I can't get "http://www.imageshack.us/"; the page load stalls.
Otherwise I would use this. I think that sounds greeat & maybe Google
should adopt such services for all its technical-oriented Groups.

I have tried to make this work according to the online help, but the
command set is poorly structured...

I cannot enter faces in the variable fillet command.
I made 4 circular quadrants comprising a full circle.
I did this as an analytical aid, but feature selection is the same as
with a full-circle sketch. This sketch is for the joint I made which
now needs filleting.
No Control Points are available on it.
The sketch has a crosshairs construction, 2 endpoints of which the
command likes as control points. These are on the smaller width dim's.,
not height. No other Control Points can be made. I cannot even select
them without deleting them; let alone "control-drag" for duplication,
per the Help.
I enter a .001 for these and get:
"VarFillet5: Invalid feature value". I guess it wanted references to
the sketch arc and not to the axes I had drawn for the sketch arc
itself. I can't know, because SW doesn't debug to this level of
detail.

Only one fillet type can be made: a Constant-R fillet w/ R<=.001. No
"Edit Definition" is avail., per the Help, and Edit Feature gives no
Var-R fillet options (no control points can be made from here either)
What am I doing wrong?

 

Without seeing it, it's difficult to say. Maybe send one of us, just a
copied surface area, (offset "0" and select the copied surfaces and Save
as a parasolid), you're trying to fillet (zip it please)?
Otherwise, for the variable fillet, you might try splitting the surfaces
to add more boundaries or control points but that may cause more
problems?
Or, as you have thought, you could loft or fill. That is, by splitting
the faces involved at that corner you desire to blend and deleting those
faces at the corner, (the solid becomes a surface) and lofting and
filling the corner area then sewing the faces back into a solid.

...

 

Yep, seems to work fine.. 8^)

http://img179.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img179&image=jan242005a8hm.jpg

...

 

Im using my real ISP now, and www.imageshack.us comes up fine now.
Here is the pic:


or

[img=[URL]http://img181.exs.cx/img181/3383/bridgesldprt9iz.jpg][/URL]

 

Check this out and see if it will work..

http://zxys.com/misc/bridge_loft_zxys.zip

...

 

Do you want to fillet the inside edge of the circular intersection ?, or the
outside edge of the oburound shape ?

You can do the oburound by filleting it prior to sweeping the circular shape
(reorder)

I'd have to try the other one.

Regards

Mark

 

I thought that he wanted to just fillet the inside edge, like this:

http://home.comcast.net/~muggs828/solidworks/Fillet.png
But pauls loft is much a "cleaner" way to go.

Muggs

 

Muggs & Paul get my meaning. It sure would be great to do this in a
fillet, but it's just not worth it if I can't cover the entire step
with a fillet. (yes, it is a concave radius that I want)

I haven't seen Paul's thing yet, since I am on the drive that has a
real ISP. My SW drive uses an ironclad firewall - Netzero (which gets
sparing, or no, use.)

Sounds like Pauls thing is going to work, though. Anyone know if
advanced filleting (like this would be) is high on SW development list?
Well, i gotta go restart and try to finish this thing. Thanx, all!

 

BTW, I forgot to ask: anyone know if the SolidWorks 2005 viewer can
possibly run on Win98SE?
I dont wanna DL & install an 18Mb mutha unless it works. That would be
a good solution to using the SW group here, via my 98 "surfing" drive.

 

OK, Here are two pix.
One with the largest fillet i could get in:

http://home.comcast.net/~muggs828/solidworks/Fillet.png

And one with a nice Loft between the two:

http://home.comcast.net/~muggs828/solidworks/Loft.png

Muggs

 

FIRST, for the good of this thread, should it be preserved for the ass
(uh, I mean, for posterity):
The construction we are working on is an arced flat bar, bent across
its somewhat thin width. Its ends are simple flat faces, one of which
has a circular bar placed flat against the face, in the middle ofthe
face. Its width (diameter) is as close to that of the bar as possible.
The bar arcs tighter than its own diameter, for about 45 degrees, then
shoots off straight for a few diameters. We want to smoothly
transition the step that forms at the joint of the two "bars." (im
gonna need a bar in a few more minutes...)

Anyone know how Paul made his Split-Line model?
(http://zxys.com/misc/bridge_loft_zxys.zip)

What was the "CUT-EXTRUDE"? I don't understand the purpose of the
triangle sketch, and I think you must have guided your separate
split-line sketch via previous geometry -- the result seems too good to
be freehand, but I cant see what it may have derived from. The
triangle sets the longitudinal bounds of your loft, huh? I have to see
if there is a trick to getting it to coincide with the sweep-path
endpoints.

Also, if you use a Split-Line, why not fillet the thing & end up with a
solid? Wouldn't that be pretty darn close to the great little loft you
posted? I have never used split lines in the construction of
transitional features as we have been talking about here ...I need to
experiment and get up to speed on this technique.

P.S., Muggs, loft looks perfect, but I don't understand any of the
tree. Not the extrude, fillet, plane or loft. Come to think of it,
that is a very compact tree. What'd you do? (u there, Muggs?)

 

wrote in @c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

If you are talking about the kind of blended connection between the two
shapes that Salvador made, then no, I don't think SW would consider making
fillets do this. Blends like this are not "fillets" at all. Fillets have
some way of driving a real radius value, but a blend changes convexity and
curvature. SW already has a lot of filleting type functions, but no "magic
wand blend" yet. Blends are best handled with lofts and the fill surface.

matt

 

Dude,

You need to discover the joys of the rollback bar and "edit feature".
If you roll the feature tree back using the bar at the bottom, you can
step through it and see exactly what he did step by step. Maybe some
basic tutorials or even a training class might help you. You seem
confused by the basic functions in SW.


Salvador's cut extrude would have been unnecesary if he had created the
sweep differently, but all he's doing is creating two faces to loft
between, the angled face of the swept circle, and the obround shaped
face, he fills the gap with a loft.

Muggs did essentially the same thing, but took a somewhat simpler route
with the extrude instead of a sweep and a cut. Salvador's model is
slightly more complex because there is a little of the toroidal face
before the loft, where Muggs lofts directly from the straight section of
the circular bar.

In Salvador's model with the split line (-b), the split lines are used
to more precisely control the loft handles between the circle and the
obround. The non-split line model just kind of approximates the
positions of the loft handles around the circular edge.

good luck,

matt



wrote in @f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

 

Since I don't know you name, Dude, you're reading more into the cut and
split then need be,..

Again, without seeing what you are describing we can not help you but
again it is best to solve the blends with lofts and fills (and maybe
some other curves for construction).

The triangle cut is just that, it cuts away a portion of the tube elbow
you show.
I could have omitted your elbow and had the same feature count as Muggs.
The sketch is referring (deriving from) to the first sketch and just a
angle so it cuts perpendicular on the elbow.
I don't know what you want so I left a portion of the elbow and in the
second example I cut back the oblong to represent blending further up
the sweep... but again, I don't know or we can not read you mind.
The splitlines are set on the face of the tube and provide splits (4,
equal to the oblong) and help with the loft transition or the adjustment
of it, so that SW is not deciding how it transitions/blends between the
two faces/boundaries.

Don't understand this question but it could be done with splits and
fillet if you like but... end up as a solid,.. it would be the same as
the corner fillet? Anyhow, don't know where you're going with that.

Anyhow, yes, go for it, experimenting with the splits will help you
understand what it is doing with or help with the transitions.
And, that is why I would suggest deleting the faces not used and doing
it with surfaces and fills or using curve blends (3DSketches or 2D) to
help achieve/construct the blend you are after.

hmm,.. it's the same loft as mine, so...?

Good luck.

 

Here is a copy of the model that I made with configs; one for the loft and
one for the fillet.

http://home.comcast.net/~muggs828/solidworks/Fillet-Loft.zip

Let me know if this isn't clear or you need anything else.
Muggs

 

Ok, just looked at Muggs' file, that's why it looks smoother, it was
created in SW2005. Muggs used the new SW2005 Start/End constraint
option, Curvature to Face, where as, your SW2004 version only has
Tangency to Face.

...

 

yeah, I know I need to review some basic SW functionality. I put SW
aside for over a year and I know the Rollback is essential to any
serious modelling environment, but I just wanted to get this project
done and move on.


Paul Salvador wrote:

I was referring to the online Help entry which uses the search index
keywords: "split lines, fillets":

"Face Fillet with Split Line"

which begins by explaining:
"A split line is another way of creating a face fillet with a hold
line. Instead of selecting an edge as the hold line, you use a split
line."

Face Fillet & Hold Line are terms I have not found a definition for
yet. Split Line, to me, has always meant the thing you put into an
injection mold design, for obvious uses. The Help item looked
promising, and I always thought you try to use solids over surfaces
whenever the solid provides equivalent surface information, so I
mentioned it. I still haven't succeeded in following their
instructions for this, the terminology is what is
getting in my way.

 

Muggs, if you still have
http://home.comcast.net/~muggs828/solidworks/Fillet-Loft.zip
could you please repost this in 2004 format? (i do not have 2005 yet)