Autodesk Inventor surfacing. Surface continuity conclusion.

Thanks very much to David Harrington, John Evans and the team at AUGIworld for allowing me to re-publish this article. To read it in full, check out the May 2014 Issue of AUGIworld.

Hard Surface modelling is possibly the most challenging discipline within 3D CAD – and the most rewarding, once you’ve got the way of it…

With a bit of surfacing theory you too can relish meeting the challenge with Autodesk Inventor!

This post concludes our series on surface continuity. we learned that surface continuity (the smoothness of two meeting surfaces) is measured using a value called ‘G’, and that each value of G adds matching criteria across meeting surfaces:

• G_ = nothing
• G0 = Continuity
• G1 = Continuity + Tangency
• G2 = Continuity + Tangency + Curvature
• G3 Continuity + Tangency + Curvature + Acceleration

Beyond G3?

Mathematically you can keep on adding more ‘orders’ across curves to create G4, G5 – Gn continuity, but we are practical realists, so we are going to stop here. Even if you could create ‘smoother’ surfaces it would be pretty difficult to measure it, so no-one would believe you anyway…

Smooth operator

If you’ve never tried surface modelling with Autodesk Inventor, I hope that this article encourages you to give it a try. If you’ve tried and not succeeded – I hope that this article gives you some insights into what might have gone wrong, and a renewed enthusiasm to pick it up and try again.
Have fun you old smoothy you.

http://cadso.co/LearnSurfacing