Surface Curvature

Calling the command:

This command allows measuring the curvature and radius of curvature of one or several selected faces.

You can view the overall distribution of the curvature on a face (for this, the model will be colored appropriately), or find the curvature value at a specific point.

To measure the curvature, you can select both individual faces and operations as a whole (that is, all faces of this operation).

Immediately after selection, the face will change its color according to the type of curvature selected for measurement and the settings on the Color tab. Working with colors when measuring the curvature of surfaces is carried out in the same way as it is done in the Curve Curvature command.

When selecting additional faces, the range of curvature values changes, so the color of the previously selected faces may change.

Types of measured values

As with measuring the curvature of a curve, in this command you can select the measured value: Curvature or Curvature Radius. However, it is also necessary to specify the type of the measured value.

The type of the measured value is defined with the help of the Type combo box, located at the top of the parameters window.  The surface curvature at a specific point depends on the direction, in which the curvature is measured. The curvature will be maximal in one direction and minimal in another direction. Due to these facts, the system allows measuring the following types of values:

Minimal or Maximal. With these parameter settings, measurements of the maximum or the minimum value will be done at each point of the selected surface.

Mean - is half the sum of the minimum and the maximum measured values.

Gaussian - is the product of the minimum and the maximum measured values.

U and V - these parameters require the measurement to be done in just one of the directions.

To find the points of maximum and minimum curvature on the face, use the following option available in the automenu and in the parameters window at the bottom of the Measurement Results in Point tab:

When using this option, the system automatically creates a label that shows the points of the surface where the curvature is maximum and minimum.

To create 3D nodes at the maximum points of curvature, use the following option available in the parameters window at the bottom of the Measurement Results in Point tab:

When this option is selected, a field with the selected elements appears. To create a 3D node at the point of maximum curvature of the selected element, use the option, and then finish input .

 

It is possible to measure a curvature at an arbitrary point. To do this, use the following automenu option:

When you click anywhere on the curve, a label appears with the value of the curvature and the radius of curvature at this point. Such labels can be moved and they are saved using the Create Result option.

 

If you need to save the result of measuring the curvature of the surface as a separate element of the model, use the following automenu option:

This option duplicates the Retain Results checkbox available in the parameters window at the bottom of the Measure Curvature tab.

If the option is active, then the created measurement result will be saved in the model tree and in the 3D scene, upon finishing the input . When recalculating the model, such an element changes its display.

 

Results of measuring the curvature at extreme points and at arbitrary user-selected points are displayed as a table in the Measurement Results in Point tab of the parameters window.

You can Expand, Collapse, Clear, Copy to clipboard or Save the table as a text document using buttons located to the right of the table.