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Flatten Quilt and Flatten-Quilt Deformation features are probably something most of us avoid due to the apparent limitations in several of the commands.
If you really need to map something with some semblance of accurately onto a 3D surface, this is the way to do it.
I have "offset" a PTC logo onto a spherical surface before and it wasn't as nice as I'd have liked (find the baseball).
I think in this sample part, I finally nailed it. And the logo turns out to be quite robust for the offset feature used here.
I was surprised to find that if you can flatten a quilt, you can pretty much map anything 3D onto it. Maybe not straight forward in every event, but there is a lot to be explored. One thing I did note in Creo 2.0 is that when you highlight the flattened quilt, the Offset Feature does not present itself (remains grayed out). However, if you pick the unflattened quilt, which does highlight the offset feature, you can change the target reference to the flattened quilt so you can proceed to manipulate this flattened surface.
You can map almost everything including solids, offsets, and curves. Examples in the attached file include a trimming edges (curves) and two offsets to make the eye... and the rounds prior to reforming the surface. The PTC logo was deformed onto the surface and projected back to the offset feature sketch. This is how you get a true mapping with offset features on a 3D surface.
In the attached sample (Creo 2.0 parametric full version), you will find the use of boundary blends; offsets, and flatten-quilt deformations. Although the target surfaces seem spherical, I had trouble flattening surfaces actually defined from revolved arcs. However, the boundary blends seems to have no trouble flattening.
Here is a quick tour of what you will find in the attached file:
Please feel free to comment and add your experience with this feature.