SpaceClaim Online Help

Faceted bodies

An STL fileFile format native to the stereo lithography CAD software created by 3D Systems. You can export parts and assemblies (.stl).See Stereo lithography. can be imported as lightweight (facets:facet only) with the ability to snap to the facets.

You can place faceted bodies on a layer.

Faceted Bodies in the Structure Tree are labeled Facets.

If the Faceted BodyA solid or surface. is Over-connected (i.e. non-manifold), the icon has a small yellow warning triangle.

Sketching on a faceted body

You can sketch on a faceted body, as shown in the figure below, and your sketch tools will snap to the facets.

You can:

• Sketch lines, spines, and points in 3D mode. Click the sketch tool, switch to 3D mode, then sketch on the STL model. The cursor snaps to the facet vertices, edges, and faces on the model.
• Use the line, rectangle, circle, spline, ellipse, 3 point arc, polygon, sweep arc, and point sketch tools to create curves that snap to geometry intersecting with the plane. Other sketch tools do not snap to the geometry intersecting the plane but you can use them to create geometry off of newly drawn curves.
• Sketch on a cross section plane of a faceted body, which allows snapping to facets that intersect the plane.

Selecting on a faceted body

When you select placement points on a faceted body, a circle around the point of the cursor helps you to identify facet faces, edges, and points. The following images show the types of selections you can make:

A double circle (normal to the screen) is displayed when the cursor point is snapped to a facet’s vertex.
A single circle is displayed and the facet’s edge is highlighted when the cursor point is snapped to a facet’s edge. The circle lies in the plane at the average of the two neighboring facet faces.
A single large circle is displayed and the facet is highlighted when the cursor point is on a facet. The circle lies in the plane of the facet face.

Changing facet edge display

The Edges  menu in the Display tab has options for changing the display of facet edges. 

Internal Edges Displayed
Open Edges Displayed
Open and Internal Edges Displayed

In SpaceClaim Options, the Appearance section has options for changing facet colors and highlighting.

The Highlighting scheme for facets matches that for solid bodies (Classic, Default, Custom). You can use the Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H shortcut to toggle through the different schemes.

Also in the Appearance Options, you can enable the Back face color to make it different than front faces. If enabled, you can change the color of facet back faces.

You can toggle the Front and Back faces (i.e. switch the normals) using the context menu for a selected Faceted Body. You know the switch has taken place because the Front and Back colors will switch. If Back face color is NOT enabled, there will be no visible change.

Copying and pasting facet edges

FacetSimple triangular face used to describe surface geometry in STL (stereolithography) file format. edges can be copied and pasted as a polyline. An example is shown below.

Material properties

You can assign MaterialProperty that you can assign to an object, consisting of material name and attributes such as density and tensile strength. Properties to Faceted Bodies.

Material Properties are preserved after operations such as:

• Copy/Transform
• MoveA tool used to translate or rotate geometry. to component
• Mesh boolean operations
• Facets>Reduce

The Material ID is preserved for operations such as:

• Facets>Export
• Conversion between mesh and solid
• Converting from simple mesh to connected mesh