SURFACE EDITING-KEEP SURFACES FROM SPLITTING APART

[bpenza]

I've got two surfaces that are perpendicular.  They are both curved, but they form a closed seam.  When I try to surface edit one of the surfaces, it will pull away from the seam.   I know you can right click on the outer edge, (max row, max col) and Preserve Position, but that doesn't help me with a curved edge. 

Is there any way to keep the seam from splitting apart, other than tediously pulling the inner points with great mouse technique?

Thanks.   Drawing attached if it helps.  I'm basically trying to show my Cad class how they can design auto bodies.

[ckeller · Accepted solution]

when you edit a surface in style feature, you can use it to replace the original surface.  Offset -> change type to "replace" -> pick a solid surface (your side surface) and then pick the edited surface.

Of course this only works if you are editing/replacing a surface on a solid model.

Upload your sample model and I, or someone, can take a look at your actual use case.

[bpenza]

A Good tip. Thanks. 

However, this is not quite what I am talking about. 

Here is the simple drawing.

I created a simple spline shape. 

Then extruded it. 

Then did a surface edit on one side.

When I pull up the surface, the seam splits apart.   

Is there any way to keep this from happening?

For some reason, I am not able to upload the.prt file.  

So here is an image.   It should be very simple to recreate.

Thanks. 

Thanks. 

[bpenza]

Oh. Very Interesting. 

I tried out your technique and it does appear that the new surface will be sealed up when I do the offset replace. 

Okay.  I guess that answers my question. 

Thanks. very much. 

[ckeller]

Great!  you got it.

Basically you're not editing the surface of a solid, but rather making an edit to a copy of the face of that solid, which you can then do what you want with.  offset-replace being just one option.

It's "blue", because it's a quilt, as opposed to the gray which is the solid-body (assuming you haven't changed the part color)

Check out the "list" tab of the surface edit.  You can stack hierarchical edits that add more and more detail but allow you to go back and make big-smoother changes up the stack and then resume back down to the final outcome.  pretty powerful for sculpty-hand-wavy-touchy-feely surface editing 😉