About Sew Surface Features

You can sew all types of surfaces onto bodies. This topic provides the information required to create sew surface features.

The following are discussed:

This page discusses:

See Also
Creating Sew Surface Features

Two Ways of Sewing

This section provides you different ways of sewing operations.

Depending on geometry, two kinds of sewing operations can be performed:

  • If the surface is designed so that its boundary entirely lays on the solid, you can sew it using the surface boundary projection onto the solid. You can also use the Simplify Geometry option. Sewing features (in boundary projection mode) is more productive (CPU cost) and stable (geometric tangency condition) than creating a solid using Close Surface (when possible) as no surface/surface intersections are computed.
  • If the surface crosses the solid, you can make the app compute the intersection of the surface with the solid before sewing the surface. In this case, you need to use Intersect body.

More About the Simplify Geometry Option

Some operations performed after sewing using Simplify geometry may make the simplified geometrical result disappear. As shown in the example below, filleting an edge belonging to a sewn surface makes the sewn geometry disappear.

Sewn Geometry

Filleted Edge

More About the "Intersect body" Option

You can use this option when the surface straightly crosses the solid without being tangent. The app then needs to compute the intersection between the surface and the solid, the portions of surface with "free edges" being eventually removed.

Note that Intersect body should not be used in case of solids having through holes or pockets and where it is not possible for surface to add material for sew operation.

In the following example, the app can compute the intersection:

Tip: If you select the Intersect body check box in the Sew Surface.x dialog box, Simplify geometry check box is also get selected automatically.

The arrow indicates the portion of material that will be kept:

The surface is sewn onto the body. Some material has been removed.

Modes of Deviation

This section provides you the information on deviation modes to define the tolerance value.

While sewing the surface, you can define the deviation mode from the Deviation list according to the required deviation limit:

  • None: The tolerance is not applied. The deviation is zero.
  • Automatic: The maximum deviation value is specified automatically and cannot be changed. By default, this option is selected.
  • Manual: In the Max Deviation box the maximum deviation value is specified manually in the range of 0.001mm to 0.1mm.
    Notes:
    • If the decimal places of the input value exceed the decimal places defined at the Decimal places for read/write numbers box, either the value rounds off or an error message appears. For example, for three readable decimal places:
      • If you enter 0.0001 in the Max Deviation box, an error message appears.
      • If you enter 0.00278 in the Max Deviation box, the value rounds off to 0.003.
    • You can enter the valid input or change the value of a readable decimal number atMe > Preferences > Main Preferences > Modeling > Knowledge Units tab.

Hybrid Design

This section provides you the information on the hybrid design.

When adding a surface-based feature or a surface feature modifying another surface-based feature or surface belonging to the same body, Part Design features based on that second feature then reference the new added feature. In other words, a replace operation is automatically performed. For an example, see About Split Features