topic Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface? in Inventor Forum

Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

archienancarrow — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 09:57:11 GMT

I've inherited a guitar contoured top which I am working on and edited to use as a template for my next custom CNC build. I'm happy with everything about it except that there are some cutout holes in the top which are in the wrong place. I need one erased and two moved up the body slightly. I will most probably need to erase them all and create new ones in a different location. However when removing the cutouts I can't get to a result which is consistent with the rest of the top.

Using Autocad I tried to fill these using the patch tool which just came out flat, or "saggy". I also tried filling with a separate object, which seems more reasonable as I could sand flush by hand once cut out, but would still prefer to get it right in CAD the first time.

I was previously using autocad until I discovered it is incapable of completing this task and was forwarded onto Inventor. Can someone help me with this one?

Attached are photos to show what's going on, and a DWG of the file.

Original Top

The Yellow circles are where they need to be moved to.

Filled with Patch Tool

Filled with Solid Object

Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

JDMather — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 11:09:23 GMT

What version of Inventor do you have?

Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

JDMather — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 21:15:09 GMT

Are you intended unit inches or mm? (The file that you attached is inch - and huge geometry???

Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

JDMather — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 21:22:21 GMT

You can use Delete Face with the Heal option to remove these features.

Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

johnsonshiue — Fri, 20 Nov 2020 21:57:05 GMT

Hi! Yes, JD is right. You can use Delete Face -> Heal to remove the holes. Before you do that, you may want to repair the body. The 3D body checks very poorly in quality. Right-click on the base feature in Inventor -> Repair Bodies -> Find Errors -> select the body. Then do Heal Error with 0.00001mm tolerance. You can double-click on each remaining failure to see some options. Make sure the geometry is as tight as possible (0.00001mm). I usually would use Unstitch and then Stitch them back at 0.00001mm.

Many thanks!

Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

archienancarrow — Sat, 21 Nov 2020 10:17:56 GMT

Hi, thank you for the replies, I have yet to go back and check my version, I will try this solution as soon as I am next able to get to my editing computer. My units are in mm on autocad and not inches, they seem to default to inches on saved files for whatever reason.

Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

archienancarrow — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 15:43:05 GMT

That all worked out better than I hoped. The only other thing I need to do is put those cutaway dips back in but in the new allotted places cut out in the top. Is there an easy way to do this?

Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

JDMather — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 15:55:11 GMT

Are you using Inventor?

Or are you using AutoCAD?

Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

archienancarrow — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 17:25:56 GMT

I have a copy of both autocad and inventor on my computer. Currently I am working in inventor because it seems more suited to my needs. However I am much more used to autocad and it is more intuitive, so I tend to load back into that whenever joining and aligning models, or taking screen shots.

Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

JDMather — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 18:07:13 GMT

When you Attach files here - they should be Inventor *.ipt files, not AutoCAD *.dwg files.

Re: Filling in Holes on a Contoured/Curved Surface?

archienancarrow — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 20:42:34 GMT

Hang on got it saved here