topic Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion in Fusion Design, Validate & Document Forum

Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 13:56:36 GMT

Hi all,

I have a subassembly that is to be placed within a container box (separate component). I've placed the sketch at the origin. When I start to extrude the sketch that represents the box I need to extrude two sides. If I select extent as "Distance" and click the face within the subassembly, the extrusion happens but won't be dynamic - if the subassembly changes, the extrusion will not. If I select "To Object", and select the face, I get a tool body error. Only at this point can I change from "Chain faces" to "Extend faces", which seems to do the job.

I was about to attach pictures but this screencast shows this happening in the exact same way. I guess this means that this is ok, it's official behaviour.

My main question is - what is the difference between "Chain faces" and "Extend faces". It isn't in the documentation that I can see. I guess "extend" means, well, extend the face but I'm unclear about the meaning of "chain".

Thanks.

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

Phil.E — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 16:00:31 GMT

Chaining always refers to tangent connections.

Chaining edges is an option for some commands, where you might want to pick all the connected tangent edges by picking just one edge.

Chaining faces for extrude is for when your extrude profile needs to run over onto an adjacent tangent face.

If you still have questions let us know.

Thanks,

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 16:42:01 GMT

Thanks, I believe I see the difference - looking through my other designs I can see the difference in the extrude (see picture - ringed area was extruded in the direction of the arrow, left is extend and right is chain). Chain seems a little bizarre sometimes because you might not spot all the faces in the extrude path that get involved.

Thank goodness for section analysis!

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 16:42:41 GMT

Thank goodness for section analysis!

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 16:43:08 GMT

Thank goodness for section analysis!

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 16:46:32 GMT

I only replied once by the way! The forum system replicated the post for each picture edit! I can't delete the extraneous posts 😞

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

Phil.E — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 16:52:31 GMT

No problem, I've reported it to the person who can remove the double post.

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

kb9ydn — Sun, 15 Jan 2017 18:00:08 GMT

I'm still not getting the difference between chain faces and extend faces. What faces is this referring to? Also this still needs to be added to the help docs.

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

kb9ydn — Sun, 15 Jan 2017 18:34:00 GMT

I found a better explanation in another thread:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/distance-to-not-working/td-p/6731902

So I (think I) see the difference now. The terminology of "chain faces" and "extend faces" still seems odd though and not very obvious. I feel like it would be better to get rid of the "chain faces" and "extend faces" setting completely and instead add another Extent selection called "up to next". "Up to next" would act like the "To Object" Extent with the "chain faces" option. The "To Object" Extent would act like it does now with the "extend faces" option.

To reduce confusion, if there is no end condition for any part of the extrusion, the option for "Up to Next" should not be available as it would fail.

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

Phil.E — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 17:03:55 GMT

@kb9ydn

Thanks for posting the link to the other thread. The Help for Extrude needs to be updated, we are aware.

While I don't think we are going to change the names or labels any time soon, you should feel free to post your idea for relabeling the extrude command options in the Idea Station. Who knows, maybe a bunch of people agree with you and we need to take notice!

For now, since there isn't a good help page, here is a graphical explanation of the extrude options.

Please let us know if you have any more questions.

Regards,

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

kb9ydn — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 18:59:02 GMT

@Phil.E That's a much clearer explanation; big thanks for that!

I don't know if the labeling change is a big enough deal to put in the ideastation, so maybe I'll wait and see if anyone responds here first.

Re: Difference between chain face and extend face in extrusion

Victoria.Studley — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 20:52:02 GMT

Hi @kb9ydn,

I'm following up to let you know that we've revised the terminology for the Extend options in the Extrude dialog.

Specifically, we:

Clarified the setting labels
Added tooltips to the dialog with descriptions of each setting
Updated cursor prompts to provide better guidance in the canvas
Updated the documentation to reflect the changes

Here's an animation that illustrates the changes:

Thank you for providing your feedback to help us improve your experience with Fusion 360!