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Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Explore how to use splines to split a face, how to use the offset command to create a surface, and how to extrude that surface into a solid body to create a soft overmold grip.
Type:
Tutorial
Length:
6 min.
Transcript
00:03
Here,
00:04
I've opened up a new handle component where we want
00:06
to add a soft touch to the top surface.
00:09
We do this by
00:10
Splines and the split face command
00:12
and we can match to any shape we want.
00:16
I'm going to create the blinds.
00:17
But first, you can see I've mirrored this component across.
00:21
I'll just move the timeline back before the mirror command.
00:23
So any changes we make will be reflected across.
00:28
Now, I'm going to create a spine on this back face,
00:30
which will be used to create our over mole face
00:33
as before
00:34
you can manipulate these blinds to match
00:37
as well as use some of the sketch constraints to give you more control.
00:45
I'll finish making our shape and this looks pretty good.
00:48
So I'll open up the split face command,
00:51
select the faces on our body that we want to split.
00:54
The Spline is a spitting tool
00:56
and then leave our split with surface.
01:00
If I change the view briefly,
01:02
you can see the split going all the way through the faces as defined by the red area.
01:09
If we go to our top view though,
01:10
we can see a slight issue with the curvature. But we want this split to be more inwards
01:15
to counter this.
01:16
We can simply repeat the process as before using the
01:19
same top lane and spitting through the body from there.
01:23
As a note, we are using split faces to create a surface thickness only
01:27
as we do not want to cut through the entire body.
01:38
Now, we are spit our faces, we want to offset these to create our soft touch.
01:45
I first need to state what services must be offset
01:48
and we can use those. We recently created
01:51
slit the faces
01:53
open up the offset face command
01:55
and set these back by about 0.5 millimeters.
02:00
You'll want to check with your team, the exact figure for this.
02:03
But for now half millimeter is a good start
02:06
again. As this is parametric, you can always come back at a later date to change it.
02:12
I'll just revert the mirror command briefly to see how it looks as a whole
02:16
and perhaps add some filets where we have these sharp corners.
02:21
Great.
02:22
Now we can start to look to create our over mold as a separate body.
02:28
I'll use the offset command,
02:29
select our recess faces
02:32
and set it to a value of zero.
02:35
This places a surface directly on top of those selected faces.
02:39
You can see by the graphics here that there is some overlap,
02:41
meaning we have this in the correct position.
02:45
And if I turn off our other bodies, you can see our surface on its own.
02:50
Now, we can use a thickened command to turn this into a solid body
02:53
using a thickness of 0.5 millimeters as specified before
02:58
our service is now solid.
03:00
As you can see in the browser tree
03:02
and the lines exactly with our main body.
03:06
I'll bring this into our main assembly where we can
03:08
now start to bridge any detail between the two.
Video transcript
00:03
Here,
00:04
I've opened up a new handle component where we want
00:06
to add a soft touch to the top surface.
00:09
We do this by
00:10
Splines and the split face command
00:12
and we can match to any shape we want.
00:16
I'm going to create the blinds.
00:17
But first, you can see I've mirrored this component across.
00:21
I'll just move the timeline back before the mirror command.
00:23
So any changes we make will be reflected across.
00:28
Now, I'm going to create a spine on this back face,
00:30
which will be used to create our over mole face
00:33
as before
00:34
you can manipulate these blinds to match
00:37
as well as use some of the sketch constraints to give you more control.
00:45
I'll finish making our shape and this looks pretty good.
00:48
So I'll open up the split face command,
00:51
select the faces on our body that we want to split.
00:54
The Spline is a spitting tool
00:56
and then leave our split with surface.
01:00
If I change the view briefly,
01:02
you can see the split going all the way through the faces as defined by the red area.
01:09
If we go to our top view though,
01:10
we can see a slight issue with the curvature. But we want this split to be more inwards
01:15
to counter this.
01:16
We can simply repeat the process as before using the
01:19
same top lane and spitting through the body from there.
01:23
As a note, we are using split faces to create a surface thickness only
01:27
as we do not want to cut through the entire body.
01:38
Now, we are spit our faces, we want to offset these to create our soft touch.
01:45
I first need to state what services must be offset
01:48
and we can use those. We recently created
01:51
slit the faces
01:53
open up the offset face command
01:55
and set these back by about 0.5 millimeters.
02:00
You'll want to check with your team, the exact figure for this.
02:03
But for now half millimeter is a good start
02:06
again. As this is parametric, you can always come back at a later date to change it.
02:12
I'll just revert the mirror command briefly to see how it looks as a whole
02:16
and perhaps add some filets where we have these sharp corners.
02:21
Great.
02:22
Now we can start to look to create our over mold as a separate body.
02:28
I'll use the offset command,
02:29
select our recess faces
02:32
and set it to a value of zero.
02:35
This places a surface directly on top of those selected faces.
02:39
You can see by the graphics here that there is some overlap,
02:41
meaning we have this in the correct position.
02:45
And if I turn off our other bodies, you can see our surface on its own.
02:50
Now, we can use a thickened command to turn this into a solid body
02:53
using a thickness of 0.5 millimeters as specified before
02:58
our service is now solid.
03:00
As you can see in the browser tree
03:02
and the lines exactly with our main body.
03:06
I'll bring this into our main assembly where we can
03:08
now start to bridge any detail between the two.
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