Check Model Tool; Check Spacing

[Anonymous]

Hallo,

Today a collegue and me had a strange problem.

We both used the "evaluate>check model" tool with exacly same settings in the tool-options, the same construction-options, on the same surfaces... but got a different check-result.

That was totally confusing us.

After some trying we found the difference... not were we expected it.

the check-model-tool resulting locators always refer to the last selected settings for the evaluate>surface-continuity tool. 

Means, if you use different surface-continuity-options during a check/correction-loop, the next check may show different results. 

The important difference in our case was the "Check-Spacing" option of the surface-continuity-tool: he used option "Arc-Length"/1mm; and I used "# Per Span". His check showed "clean", mine showed many errors.

And also here an other confusing thing. The actual spacing for "Arc-Length" is defined in the surface-continuity-tool; the option "per span" refers to the number of "Curve-Fit-Checkpoints" in the construction-options. 

So:

Wouldnt it be less confusing to separate this tools? maybe just also show the locator-settings in the check-model-tool?

or even one step further... In our company all the modelers are using the very same construction-options for final checking.

For me it would make sense to put the "Check-Spacing" into the global construction-options, so the checking-options can be exchanged/preset easily. And than maybe the surface-continuity-tool gets a "override"-button to change the parameters, so that specific locators can be placed with other settings.

Greetings, David

[mitchellt89 · Accepted solution]

 Hi David,

Thank you for reporting this. I was not able to find a case in my test files where changing the options you mentioned in the Surface Continuity Options changed the Check Model result. However, I was able to confirm your finding that Check Model does use those options in some way, so I would like to clarify: in your case, did changing the options in Surface Continuity give you the same Check Model results as your colleague?

I agree that options in one tool should not affect another tool. We will look into a solution, which will likely involve either moving these to Construction Options or adding them to the option menu for all affected tools, as you suggested.

Regards,

Mitchell

[Anonymous]

Hallo Mitchell,

Thanks for the reply.

When I used the same setting for surface-continuity-tool as my colleage, the check-model-tool was also showing the same result.
So the check-model worked the same on both pc's.

But while the Construction-Optios and Check-Model options were exacly the same all the time, we first couldn't find our mistake.
We just didnt thought of changing the surface-continuity-tool affect the check-model result.

In our case it may be a unlucky accident. Because we had some tiny fillets in a panel-gap, so some patch-boundaries were shorter than the accidently used Arc-Length Check-Spacing of 1mm.
The Arc-Length-Spacing we usually don't use. Thats also why we dont thougt of this.

I uploaded an example-file with a similar situation.
I also left some locators there, so you can watch the locator settings with the info-window.
Both sides of the panel-gap are same dirty, but if you use locators with arc-length, it shows ok, with #per span it shows mistakes.

regards, David