tips backlog - seamless extension of surfaces

Sometimes when I extend a surface, the extended areas merge with the
original surface, and other times the extended areas result in different
faces from the original surface. I never could figure out why extensions
don't always merge with the source.



Today when I copied a moderately complex face by doing an offset of '0.00'
and extended the ends of that surface, I ended up with one face. When the
offset was "0.005", all of the extended areas were split into different
faces from the original.



Extra faces in a model are the enemy, causing problems with many features.
It's better to do the copy at '0.000', extend seamlessly, then offset that
seamless face '.005' to create a seamless result than to remove the extra
offset feature but be burdened with multiple faces.

Again, I don't know if this is a unique case or it applies across the board,
but its something to keep an eye out for.



And here's a generally useful Tip -

Insert>Surface>Untrim can be used to extend faces too - just mess with the
percentage number. Untrimmed surfaces will usually be seamless to the
original, where an extension often won't be.

 

Snips here and below

Thank you, thank you , thank you! I won't know for sure until I try it out,
but I think you may have shown me how to make one of my problem parts much
more robust.

Another very interesting idea that I would never have thought of in a
million years. You are the king of surfaces!

Jerry Steiger
Tripod Data Systems

 

Ed

Your tips are like signposts in a labyrinth, pointing back to Sanity

I helped an associate recently with a difficult curvy swoopy modelling
problem which ended up being both easy and fun, largely due to techniques
and workarounds you'd either originated or brought to the attention of this
group.

Untrim is one of those features which had dropped out of my mental map, and
inspired by this unconventional workaround, I intend to survey it and stick
in on the map.

Thanks again

Andrew Troup

 

Dude, you are going to love untrim. It is really worth a look