Copy to Construction

[wimann]

Hello everyone,

This is not really an issue, more of an inquiry that I've not had the time to explore myself. I'm curious about this Copy to Construction tool found when right clicking a surface. What purpose does it serve? What are the side effects? Does anyone out there use this? What do you use it for?

I did a quick look in inventor help but it just told me that you can copy surfaces to construction to edit them. Which I believe is true but if I extrude a surface in a part file why would I ever go to a different environment to edit it? I've got the sketch that created it. Is this only useful for editing surfaces that you haven't defined yourself?

Some insight would be great. I've got a hunch it might be useful at some point... maybe even in what I'm working in now.

Thanks,

[JDMather · Accepted solution]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 Does anyone out there use this? What do you use it for? Is this only useful for editing surfaces that you haven't defined yourself?

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Used extensively in this tutorial - only for non-native geometry (solid or surface).

http://home.pct.edu/~jmather/AU2008/ML205-1P%20Mather.pdf

but some of that information is obsolete as Inventor has changed over the years.

[jalger · Accepted solution]

Hi Will,

Most of the time its used for healing Imported Surfaces.

However, you may want to make use of the surface as a start point for Alias, or Surface render in 3DS MAX.

Exporting it to consturction gives you the ability to play with the surface prior to exporting it.

You may also want to place it in construction if you want to adjust a single surface, rather than redrawing the entire model.

(used with "Delete face" and "Replace face" for inventor surfacing, which more often then not proves to be tricky)

I hope this helps,

James

[Curtis_Waguespack · Accepted solution]

Hi wimann,

At one point the Construction Environment was the only thing Inventor had for repairing imported surface geometry that had missing, overlapping, or errant surfaces, etc.

I've used this in the past to repair imported components. For instance, let's say I've downloaded a supplier STEP file and when it imports it has a translation error that prevents it from becoming a solid. I'll copy to the construction environment, then delete the original geometry. Then I'll edit the copied geometry in the construction environment in order to fix the missing or errant surfaces. And then I'll copy the repaired geometry back out to the standard modeling environment as a base solid.

Note that the Construction Environment is very similar to the newer Repair Environment.

Repair Environment:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-1B0D704D-44B8-4ACD-B854-00E2B08A22B9

Construction Environment:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2015/ENU/?guid=GUID-F6B8D0A3-8828-438F-846F-ABAF342E3545

I hope this helps.

[wimann]

Thank you all for your replies.

I don't have a non-native file (imported as surfaces) in front of me to test but I guess I'm curious about it because I've never had to use it. I want to say (again, without a file to prove it) that I've had to repair imported surface components in the past and never had to use the construction environment. I suppose this can be credited to the creation of the repair environment (which I have used)?

JD, thank you for the tutorial, unfortunately I cannot read through it right at this moment, but it may hold the answer to my next question. Are there any other effects of having something in the construction environment that are not explicitly said or not immediately observed? Say, for example, if the part is placed in a drawing? Does having something copied to construction change the way it behaves in other environments?

Thanks again guys.

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

....Does having something copied to construction change the way it behaves in other environments?

 .

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Read the paper.  Typically after doing your editing you promote back to the modeling environment (as surface, composite or solid).

I have never spent much time in the newer Repair Environment, but I swear there is functionality in the older Construction Environment that never made it to the Repair Environment.  Maybe I just haven't found it, but is seems every time I try to fix something in the Repair Environement, I give up and end up using the old Construction Environment.

[wimann]

I've saved it to my computer. When I have some time (probably after work today), I'll give it a read. I want to make sure that I can focus and absorb the material since I'm not as familiar with most of it. I don't use surfaces very often. Thanks again though, for your input and for the tutorial. It's interesting that you've had issues with the repair environment. Again, I don't use it often, but I don't recall having many issues when I have had to use it. Additionally, I'm aware that the typical process would include returning the modified solids back to the modeling environment, I'm just wondering what if. It would likely help if I described my potential use. There are times when I'm making a part that I would like to have a surface as reference, but never have to worry about it showing up say... in a drawing or even in an assembly.

Again, this is just something I'm kind of exploring further since I've never really used the construction environment before.

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

.... It's interesting that you've had issues with the repair environment. .....

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I didn't say I had "issues" with the Repair Environment, so much as I said I don't know where to find certain functions in that enviroment and suspect they don't exist in that environment (which might explain why both environments still exist).  If Autodesk would eliminate the older Construction Environment, I guess I would have to learn the Repair Environment. 

It doesn't really make sense to me to have two environments that do basically the same thing.  I suspect they just don't want to spend the time (money) to take whatever is still needed from Construction over to Repair.

Few customers get into this portion of Inventor.

[wimann]

I guess "issues" wasn't quite the word I was looking for. Nevertheless, thank you for your input.

And thanks to everyone else as well.

[jalger]

Yeah the Repair Environment is sort of hit and miss.

If you have a really broken Imported model then the Construction environment (atleast a part of it) opens and is usable.

Right now i'm actually having a hard time finding a Broken model to test on... LOL. All of the Stp files I have open correctly.

Honestly I don't remember if the repair environment has all the tools, I think its just a subset.

Most of the time the Auto-heal and auto-stitch work properly.

oh and you could use the surface geometery as a reference (Might require a few offsets, but i could see it working)

Maybe for Saftey bubble around an Assembly.  (just rememeber in the Drawing Enivronment it will have to be exposed from the browser)

I hope this helps,

James

[JDMather]

Here is my favorite test file.

It is not as challenging as it used to be as Inventor has made improvement in this functionality.

[jalger]

Ah Perfect test File.

Thanks!

and after getting failing geometry...

Most of the main surface repair tools are there, but its missing a few things from the construction environment.

I wonder if they simply renamed (Re-branded) some of the commands?

James

[JDMather]

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@jalger wrote:

Ah Perfect test File.

James

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Can you find and fix the problems?

Attach your solution here.  (...and maybe give short description on how you repaired)  (don't read the document I linked earlier)

[jalger]

3 of 4 parts healed nicely.

The Dark blue part just doesn't like the repair environment. 

I found 4 major issues ( 2 overlapping surfaces, 1 intersecting face, 1 loop oriention issue)

I can see why you jumped back into the Construction Environment.

I was tempted to just un-stich and recreate the surfaces, then re-stitch to solve that part.

haven't done it yet... might be a fun thing to try tomorrow, i"ll document the solution I come up with. 🙂

James

[jalger]

First off, sorry Wimann for hijacking your thread...LOL. (Edited becasue my steps all changed to "1")

Ok So I had some time this morning to play with the part (took me longer to document it then it did to fix it).

Here are the steps I used, I kept it in the repair Environment 🙂

1. Find the Best import Option that heals the most features (or parts)

This can take a bit of time, and the configuration will vary depending on the original file type.

i.e. A Stp setup will likely not work as well for an igs setup.

you get a message that pops up when there are problem surfaces / parts.

 2. Un-stich the Items that failed, Re-stitch, if required to make a usable surface, Composites don’t like to heal…

In this case I unstitched the Composite, and re-stitched it to make it a quilt.

Un-stitching

Re-stitching

 3.  Click “Find Errors”, and select the Quilt, to show all errors that are currently detected on the Problem surface /part (best to do this one at a time instead of window selecting everything).

4.  Next select the errors (Review them to see what makes sense to fix first)

5.  In this case I started with the “Loop Orientation Issue” I choose to have it replace the Boundary patch (Instead of deleting the face, which didn’t work)

Doing this removed 2 errors in one go.

6.  Next I used the Auto-Heal (Heal error in the selection) on the remaining Self-intersecting issue. (it decided to repair almost the entire surface quilt, hurray!?... but it works)

 7.  Next I spilt the intersecting surface (using face1 as the reference).

 8.  After that it’s all happy and ready for sculpt.

I also attached the completed part.

As a bonus now that it's a healed multi-body solid I can push out parts for an Assembly using "Make Components".

Its a great test part.

I hope everyone enjoys the solution, I'm sure I have some issues for descriptions or more likely spelling... despite Spell check.

Regards,

James

[JDMather]

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jalger wrote: 

I hope everyone enjoys the solution, ....

James

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The dark blue part was the one I was interested to see how you would "repair" in the Repair Environment.  (Inventor now handles the other parts nicely.)

There is an obscure error in your "solution".  A "crevace" down into the part that probably isn't intended.  Now go read my paper for my Construction Environment solution.

[jalger]

After you mentioned that I noticed there are a few places like that at first I dismissed them as Graphics glitches...

But on closer inspection they are little crevices. ( found 4 of them... in the locations that were highlighted in the errors...)

And now I'm going to read the other solution you posted.

James

[wimann]

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@jalger wrote:

First off, sorry Wimann for hijacking your thread...LOL.

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No worries. I'm learning through osmosis. 🙂