3D silhouette curves, Mould tool split line.

[HughesTooling]

Fusion has no way to create a 3d split line on bodies. A while ago I helped someone spilt a mouse body into 2 parts, see picture below.

With a sharp edge you can split but add a fillet and there's no way to find or create a split line for mould making. 

Screencast shows Fusion fail to split the filleted body and then splitting and shelling in ZW3d.

Mark

[schneik-adsk]

Can you share the filleted version with me?

[RandyKopf]

I voted for this...

Wow that is funny I had no Fusion lacks Silhouette split curve definition. I , but that was sure a major issue for me in days past with Pro/E and Solidworks. I've had to do so many parts over the years. This is the backside of a rotation mold with a complex split

[HughesTooling]

@schneik-adsk Link to filleted mouse. Any idea why you can't add files\attachments to the ideastation comments, you can add them to the initial message though.

http://a360.co/2eVXybt

Mark

[schneik-adsk]

Because this is already shelled, this is pretty simple to split with the silhouette split tool.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/community/screencast/b9bb4786-8afd-4281-bb50-3e757ab3e61e

I have passed on the question on the attachment...

[gavbath]

It's unclear to me why it didn't work for OP but it did for schneik. You appeared to both use the same workflow. Is it just because OP didn't shell the body first? Why does that make a difference?

I imagine modelling the base geometry in ZW3D would be rather difficult!? 😛

I noticed you imported it.

[RandyKopf]

@gavbath

I'll take a guess why it worked on the shelled thin body and can't split a solid filled body...

I believe behind the scenes there is multiple steps occurring:

1) The software internally calculates the split curve on the outer surface. and repeats creating a split curve off the inner surface. 2) It then creates a ruled type surface in between those curves. 3) It uses the surface to split the body in two pieces. 

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The solid body is a problem because it can calculate the single outer split curve. But there is no internal surface to split. In theory it could use the models centroid (center of mass) as a point to create a ruled surface. That is using a ruler to scrap along outer curve resting on the inner point as it sweeps the surface. But that would need to be part of the core algorithm for handling a solid body.

What it should do is at least create curve that could be used to split the model as if it were a surface. The result would be one surface now split in to two surfaces.

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Well that was a fun way to spend 5 minutes haha

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EDIT: So the routine seems to be more about splitting bodies and not about creating a split curve as OP wants. Once you have the curve you can get creative making parting line surfaces etc.

[HughesTooling]

@schneik-adsk I picked that part because it was not important and I could share it here. I didn't realize there was a difference using a shelled body but I get components where you can't shell. Here's a picture of a part I made a while ago, as far as I can tell I can't make a silhouette for this part in Fusion. In this case I don't want to split the part I just need the curve to make a surface for the mould split line.

And the silhouette done with ZW.

Mark

[gavbath]

Thanks Randy, that was very insightful. Makes sense.

Appreciate you taking the time to explain your theory.

[RandyKopf]

@gavbath

Thanks for saying something! And your welcome... Think I annoy some people as I just share info I've seen before as I've seen a few different packages do this very thing. Hopefully they can do what Mark ask's and just get a really excellent 3D silhouette split curve tool developed.

[colin.smith]

 This idea has come from a number of sources.  It has been added to our backlog.  Release date TBD