Sweep - The attempted operation did not produce a meaningful result

[samu3]

Hey All,

I would need some help with this. Please take a look at the attached file (Inventor 2013). I am trying to do a surface sweep along the 3D path, but I am getting an error: "The attempted operation did not produce a meaningful result".

Why is this, and how do I fix it? The profile is on a sketch that is perpendicular to the end of the path, and the profile is fully constrained. I have successfully done similar sweeps before, and cannot for the life of me understand why it is not working in this case.

Also, there have been situations where I can do a solid sweep but a surface sweep fails. Anyone have experience with this?

Thank you,

Samu

[JDMather · Accepted solution]

The 3D sketch path appears to be of very poor quality and multiple lines rather than a smooth curve.

The 2D profile sketch has un-inspectable, unmanufacturable dimensions.

I would recreate both sketches.

[samu3]

Thanks for your reply JD!

Turns out the 2D profile is ok to sweep, but the problem is with the wonky 3D sketch. You are right, it is not a smooth curve, as it was imported as a 3D polyline created by a 3rd party product. I tried to make it fit/smooth cubic in AutoCAD, but that produced so many vertex points that once in Inventor, the sweep command froze up the program.

My solution, which as a process is tedious but does work, was to create another 3D sketch, and trace the original unusable 3D polyline from vertex to vertex, drawing new line segments. Now I am able to do a surface sweep, one short line segment at a time. I need to keep re-selecting "path" in the sweep command, click on the line, click "path", click on the next line, and so forth.

Is there not a way to select multiple lines? This is better than being unable to produce the sweep at all, but is a very repetitive, slow process... Anybody know? Or, is there anything I can do to the 3D polyline in AutoCAD before importing to Inventor in order to make it sweep safe?

Thanks!

Samu

[samu3]

I guess I just figured out how to avoid clicking on "path" repeatedly... I should be drawing a spline through the vertex points, not lines... Duh!

[JDMather]

If you can get a list of points as output from the 3rd party software Inventor will create the path for you.

As far as the profile - sure it would work, but the dimensions are not manufacturable and the sketch is not dimensioned in a way that you would show to any machinist making the product.

[samu3]

I really like your idea about importing the points... Thanks!

Machinist? Your statement would be correct, if the geometry in question was not representing an underground tunnel, Sir 🙂

I ended up closely inspecting the 3D path lines, and there were some tight bundles of short lines along the path. Once I traced over the whole path from start to finish, deleted those tiny anomalies and replaced them with a single line, it works like a charm. I will still look into splines when I get a chance.

Thanks for your help JD, as always. Have a great day!

Samu