Searching Fillets

You can search four-sided fillets and analyze their radii.

Notes: Not all fillets can be detected, nor reconstructed.
  • Three-sided junctions of fillets are not detected. Fillets finishing in a triangle are not detected, at least whenever they have only three sides.
    Tip: Recreate those fillets as fills.
  • The notion of number of sides is based on geometric considerations: Two adjacent edges of the boundary are not in the same side if they form a sharp angle. Sometimes, a face may be seen as having three sides, whereas it has more than three sides, geometrically speaking.
  • Fillets with variable radius are not dealt with.

It is impossible to have an overview of the size of the fillets of a model. You must be familiar with the model, or work by trial and error.

Tip: Handle first the fillets that are easy to recognize, and then that you handle more complex areas.

  1. If you are working in an assembly, activate the part containing the surfaces to analyze.
  2. From the Analysis & Preparation section in the action bar, click Search Fillets .
  3. Select the Shape.

    Multi-Selection is available .

  4. Select the output type:
    • : The output is only a color attribute to be used later on.
    • : The output is extracts. You can reconstruct the fillets using Modify Fillet Radius, or in some cases, other commands such as fills.
  5. Optional: Select the Direction of search (pulling direction or stamping direction).
  6. Optional: From the list, select the type of fillets to search.

    Warning: This is meaningless if the surface to analyze presents undercut areas with respect to the direction selected below.

  7. For an easier detection, select one radius values interval, with the smallest possible Minimum and Maximum radius values.

    Selecting several intervals is possible, but regrouping fillets of different sizes in a single geometrical set makes the analysis of the result difficult..

  8. Click Apply.
    • The number of fillets found for each interval is displayed in the dialog box.
    • The fillets are highlighted in the corresponding color:

    • Search Fillets may detect faces as candidate fillets, although they are not fillets:
      • This occurs because the geometry analyzed is not precise enough.
      • The analysis is done face by face. Often a visual inspection of the neighboring faces tells you whether a face was intended to be a fillet or not. Remove faces that you know are not fillets from the selection to analyze.
    • Orange and red colors are used for warnings:
      • Orange indicates a variation in the fillet radius. It is up to you to decide whether the element is a fillet or not.
      • Red indicates surfaces with invalid edges.
  9. Double-click a color spot to edit the color of the fillets found in this interval.

    Tip: Take advantage of the color to analyze the result of the search: In the image below, it is easy to see that some faces have been missed by the search, and that you need to extract them to complete the fillet.

If you have selected , the fillets found are colored:

If you have selected ,

  • A geometrical set is created for each interval.
  • Its name is made of Radius followed by the radius values of the interval, for example Radius_1-5.5.
  • The fillets are created with the color corresponding to the interval in the dialog box. The fillets found in a given interval are extracted as RadiusExtract.x in feature mode or RadiusSurface.x in datum mode and placed in the geometrical set created for this given interval.
  • Search Fillets creates a join per interval found and per area of connected surfaces. Then the validity of the join edges is checked. When invalid edges are found, the surfaces are put into a sub-geometrical set named yyyNoJoin.x and the faces are displayed in red.
  • The input surface is sent to the NoShow.
  • A geometrical set named SupportSet is created with the faces of the input surface that are not candidate fillets, gathered in connected surfaces.
    Note: The collection of SupportSet and of all the Radiusxx geometrical sets represents precisely the entire input model.