Surface Models - Convert to Solids

[Anonymous]

I know this topic has been beaten to death.  I frequent these boards a lot and constantly see these threads pop up.  I read them all and try to follow any guidance, links, tutorials, etc... But I still can not grasp how to convert them.  My Inventor knowledge is minimal (been using it for approx 5 months and have attended a Basic Modelling course by iMaginit) A customer sent us 9 different parts (very simple and basic).  All of them are surfaces.  For the first few I just modeled them and carried on.  But it has me thinking that this would be a perfect time to learn how to turn them into solids without having to model them from scratch.  Again these parts are very simple and if worse comes to worse, I will just model the remaining parts. Can anyone provide simple instructions (looking at you JD! ) or guidelines or a walkthrough that I can use in order to attempt at turning these surfaces into a solid.


Attached is one of the models received for your viewing and investigating pleasure.

I am using IV 2012 Pro and have SP1 installed.

Regards,

[Gabriel_Watson]

Is there any process where I can transform a broken solid (unrepaired surface resulted from STEP solid imported as IPT format) into a new "dummy" solid, without any holes or tears in the geometry?

We often receive product data (which I cannot disclose here) from customers, and those will very often not produce a solid upon importing to Inventor. If we could at least quickly generate a substitute dummy solid to work as a volumizer, in under an hour, that would save us large load/rotate times in the software.

We already employ Level of Detail to work with those parts suppressed most of the time, but I would like to completely replace those parts for something simpler, and if any precision studies need to be made then the dummy part can be replaced with the original just for that.

Please and thank you

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Gabriel,

A few things to try but nothing is bullet-proof. You can use Delete Face -> Heal to remove detail faces. The adjacent faces will be re-intersected after the detail geometry is removed. Another thing to consider is using Shrinkwrap work flow. There are options allowing users to remove geometry (holes, fillets, and chamfers). But, if the body is bad, you may run into modeling failures.

Many thanks!

[Gabriel_Watson]

Thanks for the input, Johnson.
I figured Shrinkwrap was the way to go, but I still got a 600+ Mb IPT model file after shrinkwrapping and asking to plug all holes and remove fillets, etc. I'm also trying to avoid manually deleting many facets (cylinder blocks have so many internal facets it's a nightmare to do that) and fixing all loops, because I usually run into some saddle cases that befuddles the Heal tool (and each delete or heal command takes many minutes to refresh and be applied on the geometry).

Basically, I'm looking for a way to create a "bounding box" sort of simplified geometry, still maintaining the overall external countour/sillhouette of the whole cylinder block.

My next step is to try a different approach to this. In the past I have developed a process to extract internal cavities' volumes from solid parts, which modified... might work for this purpose here. I'm thinking:
1- cover all holes on the cylinder block part, manually with extrusion "lids";
2- create a "negative" block IPT that roughly covers the initial cylinder block IPT's bounding box;
3- Derive command to merge both IPTs into one (choose "maintain each solid" option);
4- Combine command to subtract the first block from the negative;
5- delete all internal leftovers within the "negative";
6- repeat 1-4 but use the negative as cutting tool of another negative.

Still a lot of work but seems doable.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Gabriel,

Do you know actually Task Scheduler has a task to create Shrinkwrap parts in a batch? Have you tried it?

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hi , please i have the same problem i want to convert this part from surface to solid 

[JDMather]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi , please i have the same problem i want to convert this part from surface to solid 

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It would have been best to start a new thread and link back to this old thread.

What is the source of your geometry - did you create it?

Your surfaces do not form a "water-tight" volume and has numerous gaps?

Quality check indicates issues with the existing geometry.

Is this a school project or is this a work project?

Can you Attach the original file here (before it was imported into Inventor)?

[GabiWearing]

Hi,

can you please advise where I can get this STEP import Option window?

I am using Inventor 2022.

Thanks!

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! The dialogs JD showed in his posting are in Construction Environment. You will need to enable Construction Environment. Go to Tools -> App Options -> Part -> Construction -> check "Enable Construction Environment."

Another way to exercise similar workflows is called Repair Bodies. Simply right-click on a base solid body or a base surface body in the browser -> Repair Bodies. You will enter the Repair environment and the Repair related commands will become available.

Many thanks!

[GabiWearing]

Hi John,

thank you for your reply!

I have enabled the "Construction Environment" but still have problems.

I don't know where/when I get this menu you were showing.

I have attached a downloaded gearbox from the Rotork website which I would like to convert into a solid to place on top of our valves.

I watched this video 

How to convert a surface into a solid body in Inventor 2020 | Inventor 2020 | Autodesk Knowledge Net...

but the stiching dosen't work.

Any help is much appreciated. Thank you!

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! The STEP file is actually an assembly. When importing it to Inventor, you will get an assembly. To make it a part, you will need start a new part -> Import -> select the STEP file. In the Import dialog, Part Options -> Surfaces -> Construction. Or, right-click on the Composite -> Copy to Construction. Either way will move the composite surfaces to the Construction Environment. The commands mentioned in prior replies will be available there.

Many thanks!

[APowersBY7WP]

I am having trouble getting the attached file to convert to a solid part that will export when I create a 3D PDF.  Can someone send me a new file that is not construction surfaces?

[JDMather]

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@APowersBY7WP wrote:

I am having trouble getting the attached file to convert to a solid part that will export when I create a 3D PDF.  Can someone send me a new file that is not construction surfaces?

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@APowersBY7WP 

It would have been best to start a new thread and link back to this old thread.

What is the source of your geometry - did you create it?

No file Attached?  Try right click on the file and select Send to Compressed (zipped) Folder.

Attach the resulting *.zip file here.

[APowersBY7WP]

File should be attached.  

[JDMather]

There are a very large number of surfaces missing?

Can't make something from nothing.

Can you request a native Creo assembly from the source (assembly and part files)?

[APowersBY7WP]

Yes unfortunately the model the vendor provided is missing sections like screenshot below.