Dim Question on Surfacing

[JWayman]

Hello,
I have a really dim, basic question regarding surfacing:

What is the difference between a SURFACE and a QUILT?

I have a training manual for wildfire which states "a surface is also known
as a quilt".
However, there are a number of instances in Pro/E where the selection filter
can be set to surface or quilt; additionally, when setting colours in an
assembly, the choices include assembly quilts and assembly surfaces.
Clearly, the two terms are not interchangeable, but they are frequently used
interchangeably, it seems.
I would be very grateful for a clear explanation of the differences between
them.

Regards,


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[iturner]

John


I think a surface is a single surface wheras a quilt is one or more
surfaces joined together. Extruded quilts may have sub-surfaces if there
are more than one entity in the sketch.






Ian Turner

CAD Manager

Cobham Mission Equipment

[HugoHermans]

Another thing to consider is the difference between entities and
features. I'm not 100% sure, but I think a quilt is a feature, and a
surface is an entity within the quilt-feature. A quilt-feature can be
composed by one or more surface-entities.

Regards, Hugo.

[dgschaefer]

I've never seen an official explanation, you might try the help files to
see if there is one.  Here's my take.

Surface is a general term for geometry in your model with no thickness
or mass.  If you extrude a line, you get a planar surface.  Extrude a
circle and you get a cylindrical surface, like a section of pipe.  There
is no mass or volume, because it's an empty shell.

If you create a surface feature by extruding a rectangle, you'll get an
open box.  This surface feature will have 4 individual surface entities,
but the group of them together is called a quilt.  You can then create
other surface features and add them to the quilt by merging.  Say you
extruded a tube from the side of the box.  That would be another quilt,
but if you then used the merge feature you could combine the two into a
single quilt.  When merging, Pro|E will allow you to choose to remove
the side of the box that is inside the circle of the cylinder (creating
a box with a tube, like a hamster cage) or remove the entire box
*except* the circle (creating a tube with a capped end).  A quilt is not
a feature or an entity, exactly, as it can contain more than one surface
entity and encompass more than one feature.  It's really a set of
surface entities joined together.

So, the term surface is more general, referring to the type of modeling
and the features and entities it creates, while a quilt is a specific
term for a joined set of surface entities.  (BTW - Sometimes I've seen
the outside geometry of solid features referred to as 'surfaces' in the
general sense, like your kitchen counter is a work 'surface', but that's
not what we are talking about here.)

Doug Schaefer

[lylebeidler]

The word "Surface" can actually mean two things:

1) a Surface can be what Doug and others describe have described - a
zero-thickness entity that can be one facet of a Quilt

2) a Surface can also be a Solid Surface, which is the exterior face
of a solid. If I have a solid cube, it has 6 solid surfaces I can select
from



Part of the confusion is the selection filter as John mentioned in his
original post. The selection filter can sometimes be set to Quilt or
Surface, such as in the measure tool. In that case, setting your selection
filter to Surface will allow you to select either a solid surface or a
surface of a quilt.



--



Lyle Beidler

MGS Inc

178 Muddy Creek Church Rd

Denver PA 17517

717-336-7528

Fax 717-336-0514

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