Emboss projecting in irregular ways

[Andrew_Nielsen]

I'm having trouble with emboss not producing regular shapes despite the sketch being square, regular, and squarely aligned to the target surface. The target surface is perfectly spherical (I sliced the sides to help highlight the issue, though this will occur regardless). The resultant emboss is always skewed and asymmetric. I require the shape to be perfectly regular.

Exaggerating the length of the projection geometry highlights the issue. It also occurs with less significantly wrapped projections, though it's less visible.

Any thoughts on what's going on / how to fix it? 

   

[jhackney1972]

You will need to attach your model so the Forum users can take a look at you specific model situation.  Open it, select the File menu, the Export and save to your hard drive.  Use the attachment option of a reply post to share.

[Andrew_Nielsen]

In this example, the plane of the sketch was created with a  single-point+tangent method, though the same behaviour exists with offset planes from the origin.

[jhackney1972]

The effect you are seeing is due to the fact the surface you are trying to Emboss to is a compound angle.  The design you are trying to achieve may be able to be created using Surfaces.  I will attempt it when time allows.

[jhackney1972]

I did a quick illustration model, using the same size sphere, but not the complete sketch shape you had just to show the process I believe you will have to use.  The Sweep profile can be anything you desire.  Take the timeline apart and you will understand the basic process.  Model attached.

[TrippyLighting]

Depending on what exact results you are looking for, this can be a lot simpler:

[Andrew_Nielsen]

Thanks for looking into this, John and Peter. Both of you have ended up with essentially a face split and preset sweep shape solution. While the canned shapes appear to work, custom profiles consistently fail. For whatever reason, the geometry won't subtract correctly.

I've tried different methods to subtract the resultant sweep, and they all result in the glitched body which appears solid.

John, I like your contour flange approach. I guess you saw how it doesn't quite produce the geometry that I'm after, but I will remember that method for the future.

I think it should be considered a problem if two very reasonable approaches to producing the desired geometry result in buggy behaviour.

I'm reluctantly thinking that I might have to peruse the surface modelling approach.

[Andrew_Nielsen]

 

[Andrew_Nielsen]

Update: I've found that exporting the version that "won't cut properly" from the image above to STEP, and then reimporting it results in a shape that renders correctly (not a good workflow).  This suggests that it theoretically could work and is possibly just a rendering glitch that needs attention. Oddly, exporting to STL doesn't produce the correct shape.

Ultimately I've ended up surface modelling the form I need based on offset surface split shapes. Not great, but allowed me to achieve the desired geometry. Thank you John (@jhackney1972) and Peter (@TrippyLighting) for putting me on the path.