Creating Connecting Curves

You can connect existing curves or fillets or fictive edges.

This task shows you how to:

See Also
Creating Curves on Support
Creating Fillets Bounding Curves
Ensuring Curve Quality
Editing Curves, Fictive Edges and Fillets

Connect Two Curves or Fictive Edges

You can create a curve to connect two existing ones.

Note: For complex cases (more than 2 curves to connect, or when the selection circle overlaps more than the relevant two extremities), you can switch to Free Form Curve.

  1. From the Wireframe section of the action bar, click Curves Network Preparation and select a Mesh.
  2. From the context toolbar, select Connection Curves .
  3. Move the pointer near the extremities of the two curves to connect until the selection circle overlaps them.

    Tip: Zoom in or out to select only the two curves to connect.

    • The curves are selected.
    • A red dot identifies each extremity to connect.
    • According to the tangency angle between the two curves, a connection mode is proposed, either Chamfer or Fillet.
    • You can connect two fictive edges or one curve of another type with a fictive edge.
  4. Optional: Right-click to switch from the proposed mode to the other.
  5. Click to confirm the creation of the connecting curve.
    The connecting curve is created and constrained on the curves to connect.
    Note: The properties of the connecting curves are preserved through edition:
    • Anchor constrains on support curves extremities are not editable.
    • Chamfer connecting curves are not editable.
    • Fillet connecting curves are editable as follows:
      • Tangent length is editable (even on a fictive edge), not tangent orientation.
      • You can add user points, and perform all standard manipulations, except G0 constraint.

    The curve connecting two fictive edges is not supposed to lie on the support mesh. The system does not ensure the respect of the maximum deviation for this specific curve.

  6. Optional: In more complex situations such as connecting more than two curves or when the selection circle covers more than two extremities, create a free form curve.

Connect Fillets

You can create multiple curves to connect several fillets.

  1. From the context toolbar, select Connection Curves .
  2. Move the pointer near the extremities of the fillets to connect until the selection circle overlaps them.

    Tip: Zoom in or out for an easier selection.

    The fillets are selected.
  3. Click to confirm the creation of the connecting curves.
    The connecting curves are created and constrained on the extremities of the bounding curves of the fillets to join.
    Notes:
    • All created curves are independent. Their properties are preserved through edition:
      • Anchor constraints on support curves extremities are not editable.
      • You cannot connect a fillet with a fictive edge.
      • Tangent length is editable, not tangent orientation.
      • You can add user points, and perform all standard manipulations, except G0 constraint.
  4. Optional: In more complex situations where the selection circle does not cover all expected extremities, create a free form curve.

Extend or Extrapolate

You can extrapolate a fictive edge or extend a curve on support, a fillet, oror a fictive edge to a plane, a curve, a face boundary, or a fictive edge.

  1. Right-click the extremity of a fictive edge and select Extend by Drag .
  2. Drag the handle to extend or reduce the fictive edge.
    Only the fictive edge is extended, the guiding curve, left of right borders are unchanged.
  3. Right-click the extremity of a curve on suppt, a fillet or a fictive edge (Seen as input element) and select Extend Up To .
  4. Select the target element (Plane, curve, face boundary or fictive edge).

    Tip: Ensure there is a similar distance between the extremity and previous point on one hand, and extremity and target point on the other hand.

    This avoids the situation where the curve goes beyond the target point and comes back.

    • The input element is extended and deformed to reach the target as smoothly as possible.
    • The target point (i.e. the one to reach and deform the extension to) is automatically computed by the system.
    • For curve and fillet, the extension lies on the mesh the same way as the rest of the input element. The general rule to manage the way the curve lie on the mesh or take-off to reach a target point sometime not lying on the mesh, applies.
    • Use analysis tools to check the curvature porcupine and the deviation of the extended section.
    • The tangent at the extremity is forced to be normal for plane target, or tangent to the face and perpendicular to the edge for face boundary target.
    • Once created, the target point can be edited:
      • Move in the target plane or along the target curve/edge.
      • The tangent direction and length can be edited for a curve or fictive edge target.
      • The tangent length only can be edited for a plane or face boundary target.
      • The tangent cannot be edited when a fictive edge is extended
      • The tangent point is recomputed at each modification of the curve, fictive edge or fillet, as long as the target point is not manually moved.
    • For fictive edges, only the fictive edge is extended, the guiding curve, left of right borders are unchanged.
    • For fillet, the guiding line and the border lines of a fillet are extended. The extremity curve is not generated (not needed).
    • Points cannot be added at the extremity of an extended element.