Rapidform Success » split face

Tool entity extension in XOR’s Split Face command

Tom Charron — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:25:15 +0000

On to the third installment of our tech tips on the Split Face command. Did you know that XOR will automatically extend a surface if it’s too short to split another face? If you’re splitting a face by intersecting another surface, it will extend that surface with tangency like this:

This means that, if you’re using more than one surface or solid to split a face, the order in which you pick your tool entities matters.

In the example below, picking the curvey surface first and the flat surface second results in the image on the left, while picking in the other order results in the image on the right.

Splitting faces by projecting curves

Tom Charron — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:02:37 +0000

In our second installment on the Split Face command, I’d like to point out a difference between projecting 2D sketches and 3D sketches in XOR.

Using Split Face (found under Insert>Modeling Feature>Split Face), you can project a curve onto a face (surface or solid) and then trim or split that face. But the projection method is different depending on whether you use 2D sketches or 3D sketches as your too entity to do the cutting. A 2D sketch will be projected normal to the plane that the sketch lies on, whereas a 3D sketch will be projected normal to the direction of the target face.

As you can see, using one or the other type of sketch will let you get the desired result depending on what you’re trying to do.

Creating parting lines on CAD solids or NURBS surface models

Tom Charron — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:55:14 +0000

Rapidform XOR has a pretty cool command called Split Face. It can be used for several different purposes, and one of them is to generate parting lines after you’ve created a CAD model from scan data.

Using Split Face to create parting lines

1) Go to Insert>Modeling Feature>Split Face in XOR

2) Select the Silhouette radio button

3) Define the pull direction (this is the direction the mold will be pulled when separating). In the example below, we’re going to use the axis of one of the cylinder features of this part, but you can use other reference geometries or features.

4) Pick the target entities that you want to split apart. Since this is the split faces command, you’ll need to pick one or more faces here.

5) Click the check mark to run the command, and you’re done.