Cratered Surface

Author

1-Visitor

Thank you for the swift replies. Sadly, it isn't that easy. When I said I had to reproduce the model sent, I was been economical with the true. It not the model I need to copy, but the surface type, i.e. a cratered effect. The model I have to create is a totally different shape to the igs model I have, that was sent for reference only.

What I was hoping for, was to make a plain model, then pick a surface set & apply a deformation in the same way you might apply texture to a surface using the appearance manager.

John

M

mshtein

10-Marble

Did you try Surface Edit tool inside Style feature? If you have single patch surface - it can provide you high level of details

in editing the surface.

Author

1-Visitor

Thanks Michael, unfortunately, I don't have Style feature licence.

John

Delcam PowerSHAPE: Adding Textures - YouTube

1-Visitor

The program you're looking for is Delcam Powershape

Author

1-Visitor

Thanks for the info. We have PowerShape here. I just showed the video clip to our PowerShape guys, & they almost had a heart attack! I joked that they would have to do the job. Again, just as with Creo, they claim you need some advanced surface licence to do this, which they don't have, or are they BS ing me?

John

1-Visitor

The way these software companies like to nickel and dime customers these days, I wouldn't be surprised if it costs extra.

All I know is that it can do what you need. You can always try to request a demo from your sales rep or reseller.

When I saw a demo of this, it didn't look too difficult - just import and wrap it on the surface.

Sounds like you need some motivational exercises in your office. If your Powershape boys are too afraid to do this, maybe you should take them out for some confidence building- hiking, climbing, arm wrestling, a meal involving red meat, hand to hand combat, etc. Not knowing is not a problem. We know that we don't know, no surprise there. Fear is the only darkness

1-Visitor

I read his question and understood what he was saying:

"What I was hoping for, was to make a plain model, then pick a surface set & apply a deformation in the same way you might apply texture to a surface using the appearance manager."

He would need to take his IGES and save it as an STL mesh, which would be "wrapped" the texture onto a surface in powershape.

In fact, John already came up with the answer himself. He took his experience with appearances, surfaces, and mapping textures and, through inductive reasoning, deduced that there should be way to map geometry in a similar way.

While the powershape users in his office with their eyes closed are listening to the things they always listen to with eyes open, John is making new mental connections and synthesizing new things and finding grasshoppers that weren't even noticed with eyes open.

Even though he didn't know how to do it, he still knew it could be done. This is an example of taking the entropy of uncertainty and confusion, and repurposing it into something useful. Decision and creation methods like his are how software like Creo is mastered.

The old knock on Creo (Pro/E) is that it's too complicated with too many steps, menu picks, mouse movements, etc. The real problem is that it constantly requires a cycle of:

learning the basics, unstructuring those basics in order to separate what's useful from the noise, establishing a mental map into something productive, and then destroying that mental map while extracting the useful elements

over and over and over. Most people get hung up on one of the first three steps. Only the select few can consistently accomplish the last.

D

DeanLong

1-Visitor

Whoa...my brain hurts after reading that.

An stl would never be able to produce that texture in any useable way. The resolution required would be immense. Also, the file would be so data heavy that the machine trying to deal with it would crap out. To me, that image seems to be the IGES result of a high resolution scan.

What I asked was if Delcam has that canned texture tool in it's tool box that allows that random texture to be added to the mold/die as a CAD/CAM native feature. (I.E. a surface that could be exported back to out). I briefly looked at their site and did not see anything that indicated it could do that. Typically that type of texture is "applied" to the actual physical tooling surface by some means (Chemical etching, bead blasting, etc...)

I am all for learning something new so if Delcam has that I would like to know. I have to specify texture on many of the parts I create.

Magics, the Most Powerful STL Editor | Software for additive manufacturing

1-Visitor

Look into getting some new hardware. This type of thing is done all the time.

I checked my notes and remembered that we ended up getting this work done with the mold maker. They used these two:

http://www.geomagic.com/en/products-landing-pages/re-designx-wrap

If you don't like STL then Geomagic will work with STEP or IGES

I can't tell what the scale is on John's image. If it's super fine detail then yes, they're going to use etching or electro-deposition or Mold Tech textures

I

Inoram

14-Alexandrite

You may have moved past this issue by now. But I am still curious. How big would one of those craters be? And does it have to be 100% random or can there be some symmetry?