3D Entities and Operations

Workplane is an entity that helps defining the required data for 3D operations, and, first of all, creating 3D profiles. A 3D model cannot be built without creating a workplane. Workplanes can be specified in 2D or 3D window based on various references, such as the 2D drawing views, projections of entities in a 3D model, or the 3D entities themselves, including other workplanes.

Worksurface serves similar functional purposes as the workplanes, providing a non-planar geometrical basis for further design. A worksurface can be a cylinder, a sphere, or a torus.

3D node is one of the basic construction entities used for representing a point in the three-dimensional space. There are several ways of creating 3D nodes. A 3D node can be specified, for instance, as a characteristic point on a body, referencing a vertex, an edge, or a face. It also can be located by using absolute coordinates or offsets from other 3D nodes. 3D nodes can also be specified using the nodes from the two-dimensional drawing, and workplanes. In this way, the 3D node will be defined by selecting one node on a workplane, or two nodes on two different workplanes that are related by having a common projection.

3D profile is a construction entity used for defining a patch on a surface. A 3D profile is one of the basic entities because it is used as an original reference for many operations. A 3D profile may be defined by an open or closed contour. A closed contour defines a fixed area on the surface that can be used as a base for various operations creating solid bodies. An open profile can be used as a base for creating sheet bodies only as it consists of wire geometry. There are many ways of creating a 3D profile. Thus, it can be drawn on a workplane, or get anew by a variety of modifications to an existing profile, and so on. One 3D profile may contain several contours of the same type. An example of a multi-contour profile is a text entity. A 3D profile can be obtained from hatches and graphic lines (when drawn on the active workplane).

Local Coordinate System is an entity for referencing three-dimensional objects in space. It is used for inserting 3D fragments and other elements, copying, exploding of assemblies, etc. This entity is defined by the origin point and the axis directions. Objects snap to a coordinate system by making the object and the target coordinate systems coincide.

3D connector – is a special type of local coordinate systems which allows a user, apart from performing the functions of snapping, to automatically tie external variables for jointed parametric elements of the 3D assembly models. This significantly simplifies positioning of parts and parameters assignment when designing the assemblies.

3D Path is a bounded three-dimensional curve with a defined traversal direction. The 3D paths are used in the operations "Sweep", "Pipe", "Loft". A 3D path can be defined by a hatch, 2D paths, as a chain of a body edges, as a curve passing through a sequence of 3D nodes, by modifying existing 3D paths, etc. A 3D path can be closed.

Pipe Path is a 3D path consisting of straight line segments smoothly connected by arcs. This command is mainly used for modeling pipes. A large variety of options and controls provided by this command help quickly and easily solving this sort of tasks.

3D Section is an entity that, generally, results from extruding a planar curve or polyline through all geometry in the direction normal to the plane of the curve. In some cases, a 3D section consists of one or several planes. In this case, it can be used for creating two-dimensional cuts.  A 3D section may be included in visualization of the objects of a 3D scene, and can be used in "cut" operations.

Construction array is a special composite construction element. A construction array is a particularly organized set of copies of an arbitrary construction element, except for sections, light sources and cameras. The copies contributing to such an array can be used as conventional construction elements. Construction arrays are created and edited using any of the 3D array creation operations.

Extrusion yields a body formed by straight propagation of a contour along a specified direction. This operation creates both solid and sheet bodies. Extrusion can be performed along not only the extrusion vector, but the normal to the contour in either or both directions as well.  Thus, it provides a means of thickening an arbitrary face, even a non-planar one.

Rotation yields a body formed by revolving a contour around an axis located in space for a given angle. The original contour can be located in an arbitrary orientation with respect to the axis, but it should not intersect with the axis. This operation creates both solid and sheet bodies.

Boolean operation is intended for creating a new body by combining two existing bodies. The type of the operation is specified as addition, subtraction, or intersection.

Blend Edge is an operation that modifies an existing body by smoothing or merging its vertices, edges and faces. The main difference of this operation from other types of blending is in that the new surface is created from the selected edge and merges with the adjacent faces only. The operation permits creating chamfers, edge rounding with a variable radius and elliptic rounding.

Blend Face-Face is an operation for creating smooth transitions from one set of smoothly connected faces to another. The sets of faces to be blended may not have common edges (intersect). The command has numerous options for controlling the blending surface shape, trimming conditions, bounds, etc. This operation should not be considered a substitute for blending edges. Each of the two approaches has their own advantages and well complement each other.

Blend Three-Faces is a special case of face–face blending separated into another command. The operation creates a transitional surface between a "right" and a "left" wall while tangent to a "middle" wall.

Loft is an operation for creating new bodies of complex geometrical shapes. The resulting spline surfaces are constructed on the wire guides in one or two directions and according to the specified boundary conditions. The base elements for spline definition can be practically any entities of the three geometrical types, "point", "wire" and "sheet". Depending on the base element type, the result will be either a solid body or a set of surfaces.

Sweep is an operation that creates bodies whose surface is defined by an arbitrary-shape profile propagated along a space curve. The operation provides controls over scaling of the profile and its twisting with respect to the trajectory axis as it moves along.

By Parameters – this operation extends the capabilities of the "Sweep" operation. The base profile is defined in such a way that its geometry and orientation are driven by a variable. The driving variable can assume values within the specified range. The body is created as a result of recomputing the geometric shape and orientation of the profile across the whole range of the variable values.

Spiral is an operation for creating spiral-like bodies. The generatrix contour can be defined by an arbitrary-shape profile. This operation may be used for modeling actual geometry of a thread. However, in most cases, when only cosmetic representation of a thread is needed, the "Thread" operation is recommended for use instead.

Spring is a specialized operation for creating spring-shape bodies. It differs from the "Spiral" operation in the capability of forming the end cycles of the spring. The generatrix of a spring is defined as a circle.

Cut is an operation that divides a body in two, or cuts a portion off a body. The cutting surface can be defined as a set of connected faces, or sections, or workplanes.

Shell is an operation that removes the inside material of a part by removing the selected faces and leaving the rest of the faces just thickened by the specified width in the direction where the material used to be, removing all the rest of the material. A shell can also be created without removing any faces.  Another special functionality allows creating new bodies offset from a given one.

Face taper is an operation that tilts selected faces at the specified angle while automatically adjusting other affected faces.

Body taper is an operation that creates 3D bodies by tapering faces of a selected body at a specified angle with respect to selected edges of that body in the taper direction. This operation significantly simplifies the design of cast molds. Unlike "Face Taper" command, this operation allows creating two-sided tapers and tapered body faces without having a clearly defined "fixed" edge.

Pipe operation makes a pipe along a space trajectory (a 3D path). The user specifies the diameter of the pipe and the diameter of the outlet. The outlet itself is optional.

Hole is an operation for creating standard apertures. It relies on a provided parametric library of holes satisfying current standards. The command supports creation of patterns of holes, holes through multiple bodies, and threaded holes. When a threaded hole is created on a face, a cosmetic thread is displayed.

Thread is an operation for creating cosmetic representation (imitation) of threads on cylindrical and conical faces of a 3D model. When the projections of the model are created on a drawing, the thread is automatically drawn according to drawing conventions

Rib – operation that allows us to create ribs of the solid body on the basis of one or several 3D profiles. Execution of this operation results in a solid body obtained via a Boolean operation of a union of the rib being created with the source body.

Create Part operation creates a solid body – a flat part.  The base element for the operation is a flat closed 3D profile. The body is created by thickening the profile by a specified amount. The part material will be added along the normal direction to the profile at either or both sides of the profile.

Bend operation supports three types of bending, "Bend", "Attach Flange", "Cut and Bend".

●The first type is for bending an existing body, such as a part, around an infinite axis defined by a pair of 3D nodes or a straight-line entity.

●The second type supports attaching a flange to the part according to specified length, width, bending radius and the offsets from the ends of the bending axis.

●The third type is for bending a portion of the part around a finite line segment. This is done by making appropriate cuts in the original body. The operation allows introducing reliefs defined by their type, depth and width.

Unbend operation can be used after a sheet metal model has been defined, to get the flat part and proceed, for instance, with its drawing.

Re-bend operation repeats bending of all surfaces that were previously "unbent". It provides a means of keeping the final bent shape with the model data. This is important, for instance, when creating a drawing with both the flat part views and a final bent shape view.

Convert Solid to Sheet Metal. Command is used for quick creation of sheet metal bodies or unfoldings from the solid bodies.

Forming Feature operation is specifically provided for performing common sheet metal stamping manipulations. It uses a library of typical elements for creating ribs, beads, flanges, embossings, louvers, etc. The geometry of these features is defined by 3D profiles.

Sew is an operation for creating solid bodies or sheet models from a set of disjoint surfaces adjacent to each other, as faces, 3D profiles, sheet bodies. When sewing into a solid body, the operation may add simple surfaces as necessary.

Imprint elements is an operation that forms patches of a specified shape on already existing faces. Depending on the dividing option, the shape of the new patch is determined either by the shape of the dividing element or by the geometry of the element being divided.

Delete faces is an operation that allows deleting one or several selected faces. Deleting faces breaks the solid body topology. Gaps are introduced that invalidate the closed volume. If necessary, the system may attend to mend those by various means.

Separate faces is the command for excluding selected faces from an already existing body and using those for creating a new body. The gaps in bodies caused by this process can be closed by one of several means.

Replace faces is the command for substituting a geometrical surface underlying the selected faces by different surfaces. Sheet bodies can be used as a replacement surface.

Change faces is the command for modifying face parameters when the underlying surface is analytical (a cylinder, cone, sphere or torus), as well as parameters of faces created by the blend operation.

Transform faces is the command that applies a transformation to one or multiple selected faces.

Expand faces is the command for expanding the selected face (or multiple faces belonging to a sheet body) in the specified direction by the given length. The direction of growing the face is defined by selecting side edges on the faces being expanded. 3D profiles can also be expanded.

Fill hole is the command for creating one or multiple faces closing an area bounded by a closed loop of edges. Depending on the initial geometry, the system may fill the area by an analytical or a ruled surface, or by an explicitly specified sheet body.

Insert 3D Fragment is an operation for using the geometrical data of a standalone 3D model in creating an assembly model. Any T-FLEX CAD document containing a 3D model can be used as a 3D fragment.                

Insert 3D Picture is similar to inserting a 3D fragment, except that the 3D picture has neither associativity among elements nor parametric modification capabilities. It is merely a shaded 3D image of a part that appears exactly as a 3D fragment. 3D pictures are handy at a final stage of design when the element modifications are no longer expected. Since 3D pictures are not subject to regeneration, the overall model regeneration time is reduced. 3D pictures cannot be used as references for other elements. Thus, faces of such objects can't be selected, and projections cannot be constructed.

Copy is an operation for creating a transformed copy of a body defined by various transformation parameters. Copy operation utilizes a "local coordinate system" entity.

Symmetry is an operation for creating new bodies as copies of the original of bodies by reflection at a specified symmetry plane.

Divide is an operation for separating numerous bodies obtained from various operations. The resulting bodies can further be processed separately. For instance, the bodies created by an "Array" operation, will be separated into standalone elements. This command can also be used with an imported from other systems model that consists from several bodies.

External Model is an operation for importing models created in other systems based on Parasolid format (*.x_t and *.xmt_txt). Just like 3D pictures, these objects do not possess parametric properties, however, their elements (vertices, edges, and faces) can be used as references for further design.

Linear array is the one in which the copies of the source objects are placed along one or two direction vectors at a specified step. The copies can be placed not only in the forward, but also in the reverse direction along each direction vector.

Array by points is the one in which the positions of the arrayed copies are defined by 3D points.

Circular array is the one in which the copies are placed on a circle around the array axis. Reverse rotation is also possible, including creation of copies simultaneously in two rotation directions. It is also possible to create copies in a second direction - either along the array axis or in the radial direction.

Array by path is the one in which copies are placed along one or two spatial curves. One can set different ways of orienting copies on each guide curve – by the cord, by the minimal twist, by parallel translation.

Parametric array is the one in which the spatial positioning and parameters of copies are defined by a specified parametric law.

Array of construction elements makes copies of any 3D construction objects, except for sections, light sources and cameras. It results in a special 3D construction element – a construction array.

Array of operations copies only the result of the selected operation. If the body created by the operation is later transformed by another modifying operation, the array is not affected.    

Array of Bodies copies a whole Body. If that Body is modified in the future, the array will regenerate, accounting for the new operations added in the Body's history.

Array of faces is used for adding holes and protrusions repeating existing design elements, to Bodies already existing in the 3D model. Any array of faces is always based on one model Body: all copied faces must belong to this Body.

Skew – this type of deformation assumes existence of the original body and the coordinate system in which a bounding parallelepiped is calculated. Deformation law is specified by displacing the vertices of this parallelepiped in different directions.

The displacement can be realized along any of the axes of the coordinate system, along the edges of the bounding parallelepiped, and along the diagonals of the faces of the bounding parallelepiped.

Sculpt deformation – in this type of deformation a regular mesh of points is defined on one of the faces of bounding parallelepiped. Any point on this mesh can be displaced relative to its initial position by a specified value. As a result, a flat face of virtual bounding parallelepiped is transformed into a space spline surface which forms the required transformation law for the body.

The operation of sculpt deformation has 3 modes:

●One side – only the points located on one face of the parallelepiped are displaced;

●Both sides – the points located on opposite faces of the parallelepiped are displaced. The points on the face opposite to the selected one are displaced in the same direction by the same distance;

●Symmetric – points on the opposite face are displaced symmetrically with respect to symmetry plane of the parallelepiped.

Scale/Twist – this operation allows a user to specify various scales and angles of twist in different sections along the axis of the selected coordinate system. This deformation can be carried out either for the entire body or within the borders of the user-defined region.

In addition to scaling and twisting sections, it is possible to entirely stretch or compress the deformation region in the direction of the selected axis of the deformation. For sections, the scales along different axes can be different.

Bend – this operation allows a user to bend the selected body by a specified angle with respect to the selected axis. In addition to bending angle, the distance defining the location of the «neutral» surface is specified.

Deformation by curve – for the deformation by curve, the overlap of the source curve, associated with the deformed body, with the target curve takes place. The deformation function constructed as a result of this is applied to the deformed body. A user can control the location of the body with respect to the curve. Upon deformation, one of the three body orientation control algorithms and the ways of using the source curves can be chosen.

●D curve – 3D curve. This method uses one source and one target curve. In most of the cases in practice, the source curve is a line. As an example, consider one of the typical problems solved by the present algorithm – wrapping the source body into a ring.

●Curve – Spiral. The spiral-like curve is chosen to be a target one and the axis of the spiral is specified.

●Pair of curves – Pair of curves. The source pair of curves and the target pair of curves are specified. Additional curves perform the function of controlling the twist of the body with respect to the main curve.

Deformation by surface – this type of deformation forms the transformation law of certain single surface into another surface and applies this law to the source body. As the initial data from the source and target sides, the surfaces and the three points on each surface are chosen for the subsequent overlap. An additional displacement of the resulting surface from the source surface can be also specified.

This transformation works in two modes – «By parameters» and «With minimal distortion». In the former case, the exact overlap of the parametric surface spaces by the selected points is carried out. In the latter case, the proportions of the geometric distances measured between certain points on the source surface are preserved.

Fillet 3D weld

Intermittent fillet 3D weld

Butt 3D weld

Intersection Check is the command for examining the model against intersections and contacts between selected bodies. The command is particularly helpful when working with assemblies.

Curve curvature is the command for measuring the curvature and the radius of curvature on selected curves. The curvature is displayed in the form of the porcupine quill. To measure curvature, you can select edges and 3D paths.

Surface curvature is the command for measuring curvature and the radius of curvature of one or multiple selected faces. You can watch the overall curvature distribution on the face (the model is colored appropriately for this purpose), or read the curvature value at a specific point.

Surface deviation is the command for defining the selected face's normal deviation from the specified direction. The colored face display allows watching the deviation all over the face. You can also measure the deviation at a specific point.

Surface gap is the command for evaluating the gap between two or multiple selected faces. The command is used for analyzing models suffering import/export deficiencies.

Normal deviation is the command for measuring deviation between the normals of the neighboring faces evaluated on the specified edges. The quills displayed in the 3D window help watching normal deviation across the overall edge extend. Besides that, the angle of the normal deviation can be measured at a specific point.

Surface smoothness is the command for evaluating the model regularity. On entering the command, a special pattern is applied to the body's faces, usually made by long light and dark stripes. This pattern helps usually determine whether the adjoining faces make a smooth tangency transition, or smooth curvature transition.

Model Separation Check is the command for identifying faces of the areas preventing a die cast or injection mold from opening. Additionally, the faces are highlighted, whose slant angle with respect to the selected direction is less than specified.