SolidWorks 2010 Bible

Chapter 27: Working with Surfaces

FIGURE 27.10

The Fill Surface PropertyManager and the results of applying it

You can set boundary conditions as Contact, Tangent, or Curvature. Contact simply means that the

faces touch at an edge. Tangent means that the slopes of the faces on either side of the edge match

at all points along the edge. Curvature means curvature continuous (or C2), where the Fill Surface

matches not only tangency, but also the curvature of the face on the other side of the boundary

edge. This results in a smoother transition than a transition that is simply tangent.

When you select the Optimize Surface option, SolidWorks tries to fit the four-sided patch into the

boundary. Notice that on this part, even though the Optimize surface option is selected, it is

clearly being ignored because the boundary is a six-sided gap and cannot be patched smoothly

with a four-sided patch. It is not necessarily an improvement to make a Fill Surface optimized,

even when it works.

Constraint curves can influence the shape of the Fill Surface. An example of this is shown in Figure

27.11. The construction splines shown on the faces of the part were created by the Intersection

Curve tool and enabled the spline used for the constraint curve to be made tangent to the surface.