

It also helps when others are trying to follow what you've done. Take note of the solids tree and level manager, everything is named for clarity. (Solid face coloring coming soon in X5 so they say) Here are the results after the Boolean Remove, and the finished part turned into surfaces so that I could color the individual faces for clarity. The blue geometry in the pictures are what im after. Since you can't Xform a individual operation within a solid body, I'll create separate solid bodies so that I can mirror them, then use the Boolean Remove function to save some work. You can only cut or add boss as a Sweep if a Solid is already created and exist on a visible level.īeing a little silly here but the next pics shows 2 sweeps, the second being a add boss, using two of the same profiles that I used for the extrude. Do not use a single straight line as your path because this would result in the same exact shape as an extrude and needlessly adds an extra step. Sweeps are used when a profile needs to follow a path that is curvy. We don't need 2 or 3 separate bodys as that would just create more work and a messy Solids tree. Also take note that only 1 solid body is created in these 3 operations and that a boolean op cannot be performed here nor do we want to use that function. The grey is in the right plane and the main, or first extrude, green is in the front and is a cut, and the blue is rotated to a compound angle and is a add boss. You can only cut or add boss as an extrude if a Solid is already created and exist on a visible level, otherwise it just becomes a new and separate solid body.ĮX 1: Notice in the following drawing that all the features that I'm about to extrude lie flat in their own separate planes and that the green and the blue do not intersect the model (although they could if I needed them to) that resulted from the first extrusion of the grey profile. If no other solids exist on the current visible levels, you will not have the option to cut or add boss. Choosing the wrong face to start with can result in major complications later on or even catastrophic failure forcing you to start from scratch. With more complex models, knowing what side to extrude first and how many features to put in that extrusion is a matter of experience. Try to extrude the side of a part that will yield the most features to describe that part without creating problems later on in your model. In Mastercam, extruded features (Shapes), must be flat, that is to say all the drawing features of the particular shape must lie in the same plane.

This is almost always the first step, (but not necessarily), in creating most models. More on that in a few.Įxtrude is a linear function, that is to say it will not follow a curved path.

Booleans are also used when you need to make multiple bodies of a solid for an Xform function such as Mirror or Translate to speed up the creation of the Model. Some complex solids are easier to create after multiple (Separate) solid bodies have been made, then removed or added to the main solid. Why 2 bodies? Maybe you imported 1 of the bodies and need to use it, or a portion of it, to add to, or remove from your existing solid. Usually it's used when your working with two separate sold bodies. It is best to use the Boolean features sparingly. Using a boolean remove is an added step, can clutter up the solids tree needlessly, and results in more time spent making the model.

This will be my first post with pictures on the new forum, so I'll put some effort into it. You're comparing apples and oranges here but I'll try to explain it with out any teaching credentials.
