By the way, this tutorial was written with the simplified RapidWorks interface in mind. That said, all the instructions here also apply to Rapidform XOR, but the commands may be in a different place than we describe here. Anyway, without further ado, here is our guide to trimming complex meshes…

Parting Lines 101:

How to Get Those Pesky Meshes to Trim

1. Run the Healing Wizard to get rid of all defects in the mesh. Optionally, run it a second time to
iron out any remaining defects.

2. Perform a Global Remesh, keeping the default settings. Check the box “Make clean and
manifold solid mesh” if the mesh encloses a volume (i.e. is not just a surface shell).

3. Accept the edits to the mesh at this point.

4. Create/edit a parting line as a 3D Mesh Sketch. Make sure the curve is a closed loop (indicated
by a red dot where the start and end points join together).

5. Rebuild the parting line with a very tight tolerance. Optionally, split the curve into several
smaller pieces and then rebuild all of them with a tighter tolerance. See the two pictures below:

6. Copy the mesh and paste it at the bottom of the Feature Tree. Edit this new copied mesh.

7. Try to trim the mesh using the “By Curve” method, and choose “Rearrange Poly-Vertices” at the
bottom of the command tool.

8. If this doesn’t work, or you get a message like the one below, you need to tighten the tolerance
on the parting line curve even more. Exit out of mesh-editing mode, then edit the 3D Mesh
Sketch of the parting line.

9. Select the whole parting line (i.e. all the segments that make up the closed loop). It’s time to try
some edits that will help the trim run smoothly:

– a. If you did not split the curve before, do so now by choosing the Split command with the
“Pick Points” option and clicking on several points around the curve.

– b. Double-check that the curve is closed by identifying a red point somewhere on the
curve.

– c. In the “Rebuild” tab at the top of the screen, make the allowable deviation (of the curve
from the mesh) smaller by a factor of 10. You should notice that the number of control
points increases drastically to meet the stricter tolerance.

Accept the changes to this 3D Mesh Sketch.

10. Edit the copied mesh again. Trimming should now work for you. If not, repeat steps 9 and 10
until it does trim well.

Choose both the inner and outer portions as “remaining regions,” and accept the command.

11. Choose the “Flood Fill” selection tool at the bottom left of the screen (i.e. the paint bucket).
Hide all meshes besides the one you are editing, and then click on one side of the active mesh.

When you have selected one half of the trimmed mesh using the Fill tool, hit Crl+C or select
Edit.Copy. Now accept the changes to the mesh and hit Ctrl+V or select Edit.Paste outside of
any mode to paste a new mesh into the Feature Tree. This new mesh is made up of only those
polyfaces that were selected before, so it is one half of our desired result.

12. Edit the complete, trimmed mesh once again. Choose the Flood Fill selection filter, and use it to
select the other half of the trimmed/split mesh. Copy this portion just as you did in step 12
above, then exit out of the mesh editing mode. Outside of any particular editing mode, paste
the selected polyfaces as a 2nd (or 3rd) new mesh in the Feature Tree. You now have both pieces
split along the same curve and saved as individual meshes. Save the RapidWorks project, export
your split meshes and continue with your overall workflow! Here is a shot of the final result:

Happy mold making!

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.

When you import scan data, the data will be loading in the software, and a new Mesh Feature will be added in the Feature Tree. Sometimes, you can have additional items created after the Mesh Feature, but you will not be able to immediately be able to trim the mesh using these items. This is because parametric CAD systems have a history, meaning that it not only records what you do, but when you did them, and what the current state of the model was at that time. When we Rollback to edit the model, we are going back in time. Any items that did not exist at that time will not be available. We have three possible solutions to this situation, as follows:

Preparation
1. Click the (Import) button, Click Insert > Import to open the Import dialog box.
2. Select all files.

3. You can see an unedited mesh data as shown in the image below.

1. Using Ref.Plane

First at all, when you create a Ref. plane, the plane feature is recorded under the mesh feature. In this case, you will not be able to select of use the Ref. plane. We can, however, chage the order of the events in our history. By moving the plane to occur before the mesh, we will the be able to use it while editing our mesh feature.

You must move the Plane 1 up before the mesh feature, as shown in the image below.

Double click the Mesh Feature in the Feature Tree or click the (Mesh) button. You will enter the Mesh mode, and then you can edit the mesh by using the Ref. plane.
You can see the Ref. Plane in the Mesh mode as shown in the below image.

Click the (Split) button, or click Tools > Mesh Tools >Split in the menu.

Check By Entity as Method and select Plane1 as the Tool Entity. If you want a closed mesh, you can check the Cap Section Ends option. Click the (Next) button.

Select the remaining region and click the (OK) button.
Shown below is a split mesh.

2. Using a 3D Sketch

This method is to use the 3D Mesh Sketch. First at all, you must sketch a line by using the spline command, and then copy and to move it.

Click the (3D Mesh Sketch) button. Click the (Spline) button, or click Tools > 3D Sketch Entities > Spline in the menu.

Sketch the spline on the mesh as shown in the image below.

Click the (OK) button. You can see 3D Sketch 1 Feature located under the Mesh Trim Feature. In this case, you cannot edit the mesh with the 3D Sketch.

Select 3D Sketch 1 in the Feature Tree and copy it using Ctrl + C on the keyboard.

Click the Ok button.

To paste the Copied Sketch (Ctrl + V)

Select Copied Sketch and move it up before the mesh feature as shown in the image below.

Double Click the mesh and enter the Mesh mode.

Click the (Trim) button and check By Curve as the Method. Select the previously created spline as the Curves. Click the (Next) button.

Select the Remaining region and Click the (OK) button.

Shown below is a Trimmed mesh

3. Moving the mesh

This method is to use the copy & paste command and is very similar the previous method.

Click the (3D Mesh Sketch) button. Click the (Spline) button, or click Tools > 3D Sketch Entities > Spline in the menu. Sketch the spline on the mesh as shown in the image below. Click the (3D Mesh Sketch) button again to escape this mode.

Select the mesh in the Feature Tree and copy it using Ctrl+C on the keyboard.
Click the OK button.

Paste the Copied Sketch (Ctrl +V) and it is automatically placed at the end of the Feature Tree as shown in the image below.

Note

If the mesh is not placed in the appropriate place, under the 3D Sketch; you must click-and-drag to move the mesh feature below the sketch feature desired.

Double click the Copied Mesh to enter the mesh edit mode.

Click the (Trim) button and check By Curve as the Method. Select the created spline as the Curves. Click the (Next) button.

Select the remaining region and Click the (OK) button.

Shown below is a trimmed mesh.