Extrude using Projection

[michael_ray_neal]

Have a look at my attached .f3d file and give me a suggestion of the best way to trace the outside of this model all the way around. I'm struggling to do it the most efficient way although I can't do it but there's gotta be a simpler way. My way is to project which produces the faint pink line around the outside edges and then to manually add lines thus allow me to trace the whole model. There has got to be a simpler way to produce this model once I project the outside edges. I'm just having a hard time figuring it out. If you notice that once I project the outside of the imported model, and then I turn off all the bodies, thus leaving just the pink outside traced lines, how can I extrude from this? The way I would normally do it is to manually trace the pink lines, but there's gotta be a simple one click or two click solution that I'm missing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[TheCADWhisperer · Accepted solution]

@michael_ray_neal 

Doesn't get you all the way there, but projects most in one click.

Edit Sketch1

Select Project - Intersect and then select the body.

Click on image above to enlarge the view.

Tip: Surface Patch seems to be more fault tolerant of "open" profiles.

You can patch and trim and Thicken.

[johnsonshiue · Accepted solution]

Hi Michael,

There isn't a one-click workflow to obtain the desirable geometry. For this case, the pockets and the channels are adding unnecessary complexity.

First, make a copy of the main body and stitch it into a solid body. Delete the unneeded detail geometry to restore the base faces.

Next, create a midplane based on the front face and the back face. Create a sketch on the plane and use Intersect command to project the intersection curves. Or you may use Boundary Fill command and select the midplane to cut the body in half. You will get the outer edges. Project the edges to a sketch accordingly.

It is a bit tedious but highly doable. Please take a look.

Many thanks! 

[michael_ray_neal]

OK, still have some issues.

Here are the steps Im doing:

1: create sketch.

2: Project-Intersect and select Bodies and click on main body. Picture 2 is what I get which isn't right.  I need just the outline of the original body in a sketch, then I can extrude it as needed.

PS, If I select Project-Intersect and select Specified Entities then I need to select every edge which there are a whole bunch.  This is not what I want to do.

What am I doing wrong?

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@michael_ray_neal wrote:

OK, still have some issues.

Here are the steps Im doing:

What am I doing wrong?

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No file Attached?

If you examine my file I created an offset workplane.

I already had a sketch started.