How to split a complex body in half (or percentage)

[cadop5R9X9]

I have a complex body that was created through a combination of the t-splines form tool and an intersection. 

I want to split the body at the 50% mark, based on e.g. some edges/rails.  I thought offset face would do it, following the normals or edge rails, but it doesn't seem to work for multiple curvatures. 

I was also thinking of using loft by 'include 3d geometry' and selecting the edges of both sides, but I can't see if there is a loft option for percent along path (I used to do something like this with 3DS max). Sweep does seem to have the percentage, but is really complex and alot of effort to get it to work. 

My last resort was creating a sketch to manually define the midpoints on each edge, but this will take alot of time.  

I'm hoping there is a simple solution that I haven't thought of or realized, otherwise maybe its a feature request to allow a 'percent' of distance from the first loft edge to the second. 

[g-andresen]

Hi,

Please share the file.

File > export > save as f3d on local drive > attach it to the next post.

günther

[cadop5R9X9]

Attached

[jeff_strater]

your model does not contain the original Form body or bodies.  You might be able to offset the T-Spline body as a way to get that mid-surface.  The body is not symmetric at all, so it is not clear exactly what the splitting surface should look like.  You might be able to create something with Boundary Patch, but it would take a while to set up.

[cadop5R9X9]

thanks for the ideas. Yes it is not symmetrical, but at least for my case, the form can be created from lofting the profiles of two sides. It would be nice to have a feature in the surface tab similar to the t-splines 'slide edge', or 'insert loop' at a percentage. Then I could easily use the 'include 3d geometry' in a sketch to pull the profiles, loft, then get the midpoint of the lofts interpolation between the profiles. 

[Steven_Gao · Accepted solution]

Hello,

As Jeff mentioned, the shape of this part is irregular. Even you loft the profiles of two sides, the lofted shape should not match with original shape. So far, I think your idea(My last resort was creating a sketch to manually define the midpoints on each edge, but this will take a lot of time. ) is possible to split the part with approximate boundary patch. I have a try with this method and not sure you can accept the result or not. Please refer to the attached file for details.

[mango.freund]

Hello @Steven_Gao  the class! absolutely professional. remarkable the surface has been cleaned up. the question arises as to how the original was created in order to have its interrupted surfaces.

greetings mango

[cadop5R9X9]

Thanks for looking into it. Yes the manual drawing of the midpoints is exactly how I first tried it and it works okay but takes too long, so I was hoping for a better way. Its also why I do think an automatic feature would be possible, since the logic is pretty straightforward (select some edges, divide by percent, slide/interpolate boundary along edges (or split the body and take the new profile)).  I realize there is the one corner that isn't 1-1 on the edges, but I think either making a selection that determines which edges to follow and divide/interpolate (like rails in sweep/loft), or just an error would be fine.  Maybe this is off-track and should just be in ideas section but thought I would give my 2-cents anyway to you.