SpaceClaim Online Help

Fill

Use the FillUse the Fill tool to simplify or clean up geometry by extending surrounding faces to eliminate a selection. The selected region is filled in or healed with the surrounding surface or solid. tool to fill in the selected region with the surrounding surface or solid. Fill can "heal" many cuts made into geometry, such as chamfers and rounds, subtractive revolves, protrusions, depressions, and regions removed by removing regions in the CombineA tool used to cut or glue geometry together. tool. When using Fill to fill a gusset, the bend geometry on which the gusset is defined remains intact.

The Fill tool can also be used to simplify surface edges and cap surfaces to form solids. You can select a combination of faces and edges to replace them with a single new face.

You can use the Fill tool in Sketch modeModeThree ways of designing: Sketch, Cross-section, or 3D. You can switch between modes at any time. for drawing in two dimensions using the sketching tools on the sketch grid. A sketch is a collection of lines and other 2D objects on a sketch grid. Sketching creates regions that can be pulled into 3D. When you pull your sketch into 3D with the PullTool used to distort or deform geometry. Use the Pull tool to offset, extrude, revolve, sweep, draft, and blend faces; or to round, chamfer, or extrude edges. When converting a sketch to 3D, pulling a line creates a surface and pulling a surface creates a solid. tool, regions formed by intersecting lines will become solids and lines will become edges. to fill a loop of sketch curves that is almost closed, but that has multiple small gaps. If the gaps are too large, multiple error messages appear to show you where the gaps are. You can also use it to concatenate multiple sketched curves.

You can also use the Fill tool when editing a layout. Fill functionality is useful when you sketch faces across section lines, but do not want the section lines to split the surfaces when you switch to 3D.

When you change the geometry of a model, for example, the model’s length, height, or width, the model’s fill pattern will automatically update to correctly re-fill to the model’s new geometry.

Using the Fill tool

Click on one of the links below for detailed information about working with the Fill tool:

Sketch and layout curves

If you select one or more end points of sketch curves, the curves are concatenated into a single spline. Neighboring sketch curves are merged into one selectable item with an underlying spline. The spline is not displayed until the concatenated curve is modified:

Let's look at the following sketch curves:

One of the rectangles isn't closed. If we fill this rectangle, the loop is automatically closed and it becomes a surface:

The gap in this loop is small enough for the Fill tool to automatically close. Larger gaps will not be closed. If a gap is less than 1.5 times the length of the minor grid spacing on the sketch grid, the edges are extended to close the gap. If the gap is larger, a message appears in the status bar and the gap's endpoints flash.

The Fill tool also created surfaces from the other closed loops of sketch curves. The darker shaded areas in the image above show where the surface parts overlap. If we move the rectangle, we can see the surface that was created automatically:

The result only has edges for the sketch curves that we did not select, because the selected curves were used to create a separate surface.

Now let's go back and close the open rectangle, and let the Fill tool automatically create surfaces without selecting any edges:

This surface has edges for every closed sketch curve. The same thing automatically happens if we go from sketch mode to 3D mode.

If we select all the sketch curves, then click Fill, we get a surface without any interior edges:

You can also fill layout and sketch loops:

And a loop of non-tangent 3D curves:

Vertices

You can select any number of edge points in any order. Each edge point is removed and a spline is created to make a smooth curvature change between the neighboring edges to the point:

If you Fill a vertex on a solid, the system attempts to merge coincident edges into a single edge:

Edges on surfaces

If you select one surface edge in the shape of a spline or arc, the edge is simplified into a straight line:

If you select two or more edges of a surface, the edges are simplified with a straight edge between the end points:

If you select an edge that is completely within a surface, the edge is removed:

If you select all the edges that enclose a surface, the surface is simplified into a rectangle based on its extents:

If you select a single edge that lies on an analytic surface, Fill will simplify it with the neighboring edges:

You can fill irregular gaps on a circular surface, and the gap is simplified into a straight edge. Use Fill again on the straight edge, and the edge becomes round:

Chamfers on surfaces

Select a chamfer on a surface and then use the Fill tool to fill the chamfer.

Edges on more than one face

If you select a chain of open, planar surface edges, Fill creates faces based on the edges you select:

or

If you select an open edge loop that belongs to multiple faces, Fill attempts to cap it with an analytic surface (cylinder, cone, etc.):

If you select a series of planar edges, you will get a planar face:

If you select a series of surface edges that are not planar, Fill extends neighboring faces if the Patch BlendSmooth and tangent transition between faces or edges; created using the Pull tool. option is off:

If the Patch Blend option is turned on,

If you select an edge loop and Alt+click to select neighboring faces, the new face will be tangent to any faces you used Alt+click to select:

You can also extend neighboring faces to fill sliver gaps (double click to get loop):

If you select open edges of a self-intersecting surface, Fill tries to form a solid and remove excess (also works in combine):

If you select an edge loop and use the Patch blendFill tool option that uses the initial tangency of the neighboring faces to fill the selected edges. Faces are blended into a smooth, single-face patch, instead of extending the faces attached to the edge until they intersect. Deselecting the TangentLineA straight line, arc, or spline drawn in Sketch mode or on a layout plane. Lines have length but no area. When you pull a sketch into 3D with the Pull tool, lines become edges. that touches a curve (arc or circle) at only one point, without crossing over, and is perpendicular to the radius at the point of tangency. You can sketch a line tangent to a curve or you can sketch an arc tangent to a line or curve. extension option ignores the tangency of the neighboring faces. and Tangent extensionSee Patch blend options:

When you fill a loop of edges, you can use Alt and select curves and the new face(s) will pass through the curves:

If you select an edge loop and guide curves, with or without the Tangent extension option (which applies to areas not influenced by guide curves):

If you select an imprinted edge on the face of a surface or solid, the imprinted edge is removed. This works the same as delete:

If you select laminar edge(s) of a solid or surface, Fill simplifies the edges by replacing them with a single edge with the same geometry:

Solids

If you select faces, Fill deletes them and extends neighboring faces:

If you select a chamfer or round, Fill removes them and adds them to a named group:

If you select rounds with neighboring rounds, Fill creates planar caps (because rounds should not be extended by definition):

If you select rounds on shelled parts, both faces of the shell are filled:

If you select joint edges created in Sheet Metal, the joints are removed:

If you select two imprinted edges, as shown below, they are combined into one edge:

Faces and edges or sketch curves

With at least one face selected and at least one edge or sketch curve selected, Fill will remove the selected faces and create a single new face using the removed faces and the selected edges as inputs:

If you select two faces or surfaces that don't touch, you can replace them with a single face. You must double-click to select the gap between the faces:

Any combination of sketch curves, layout curves, surface edges, and solid edges

When you select any combination of sketch curves, layout curves, surface edges, and solid edges that lie in the same plane and form a closed loop, Fill creates a planar surface:

 

Meshes

Mesh internal loops and boundary loops can be filled with the Fill tool. The loops are filled with facets that consider the curvature of the neighboring facets. This produces a very smooth and uniform fill. The newly created facets are added to the selection set after the fill.

 

 

Multiple mesh loops can be filled at once in three cases.

 

Separate loops on the Same mesh object that are NOT intended to be joined.

 

 

 

Separate loops on the Same mesh object that ARE intended to be joined

 

 

 

Separate loops on Different mesh objects that ARE intended to be joined

 

 

 

Loops on exterior and interior shells, when filled simultaneously, will create a wall thickness. Fill the interior and exterior loops separately to continue the shell.

 

 

You can also use the Delete key to fill faces on a solid or surface.

To fill a region

1. Select the edges that define a surface region, or the faces that define a region within or on a solid.

   You can select an object in the Structure treeDisplay in the Structure panel that shows you each of the objects in your design. You can expand or collapse the nodes of the tree to view the objects. You can rename objects, create, modify, replace, and delete objects, as well as work with components. to simplify it.

   You can select faces and the Fill tool will automatically create a patch if you also select at least one edge.

2. Click the Fill tool or press F.

To fill sketch or layout lines

1. Select a closed or almost closed loop of sketch lines.

2. Click the Fill tool or press F.

   If a gap is 1.5 times the length of the minor grid spacing on the sketch grid or less, the edges are extended to close the gap. If the gap is larger, a message appears in the status bar and the gap's endpoints flash.

   The mode is switched to 3D mode, and the filled loop becomes a surface.

   You can select the face of a solid when only the edge is displayed (such as in a drawing sheet view) using the scroll wheel. The edge becomes a slightly thicker line when the face is highlighted. If you fill lines in a layout, you can then pull the surface into 3D from the layout, but remain in edit layout mode after this action.

   You can fill lines and edges whether or not the sketched lines you want to fill were sketched in the same plane as the edges. (If the lines are imprinted on a face and become edges, filling those edges deletes them.)

Click the Fill tool in Sketch mode to fill any closed or almost closed loops and switch to 3D mode.

Tool guides

The following tool guides help step you through the process. Use the Tab key to cycle through them. As soon as the tool guide switches, the cursor may change to reflect the active guide.

Options

The following options are available in the Options panelArea of the user interface that enables you to modify functions specific to tools.:

• Patch Fill: Fills the selected edges using the initial tangency of neighboring faces to create a smooth patch.



• Extend Fill: Fills selected edges by extending the neighboring faces.



• Show UV gridSee FaceSide or other surface of a solid. Some examples are the inside surface of a hole or the six sides of a rectangular solid. See Surface. GridSee Sketch grid: Enabled for Patch Fill. Displays a grid on the Fill preview to help visualize the contours. Use the dropdown slider to adjust the density of the grid.

  

• Show deviation: Enabled for Patch Fill. Shows a Deviation analysis of the patch. You can set the color and scale used to display the analysis.

In the Fill tool, using the Patch option, fill multiple areas at once using Alt-selected tangency influences and preview the changes. In the example, the two loops are being filled simultaneously and previewed. Notice the preview change when a different PointSingle location in the sketch grid. 2-D object that has no height, width, or length. The origin, an axis, and a vertex are examples of points. Use the Point tool to sketch a point on the sketch grid. Points are useful as a dimensional reference, for splitting, and for creating a point on a line or curve through which you want to draw a three-point circle. is Alt-selected.

Examples

Simplifying edges

Simplifying edges across multiple faces

Filling with straight and curved edges

Filling with curved edges as guides

Capping a surface

Capping a surface that crosses multiple edges

Filling edges to form a solid

Patch blend with and without tangent extension. The Tangent extension option is selected on the left, and not selected on the right.

When selecting Guide Curves in the Fill tool, preview allows continued selection of multiple Guide Curves. This enables you to understand how the Guide Curves influence the geometry.

Fill works on multiple-selected, disconnected edge loops in surfaces. Use this as a shortcut instead of filling edge loops individually.