I’m trying to make this thumb tab. I’ve been at it for some time. I always end up with naked edges and fillets that won’t work. Obviously, my approach is erroneous giving me wonky geometry. The dark gray model is the best I’ve gotten so far. I left some parts that I used to boolean and cut in the hope they’ll explain my process.
Thumb_TAB.3dm (485.2 KB)
simply deleting and remaking the surfaces highlighted yields a closed polysrf for me.
this video may help-
Thanks Kyle. I deleted all the highlighted surfaces, duped the curves of the opening, then used sweep2 to sweep the marked edge and now it is valid. What I cannot understand is how this keep happening as I model. It is a small piece. Should absolute
tolerance be set less than .001?
tighter tolerances can make getting watertight parts harder… but they data transfer more reliably.
looser joins easier into a solid, but you may have trouble data transferring to programs like solidworks who use super tight tolerances.
in your case, a bit of back and forth to get the model to join up is not that bad… I have definitely made worse myself… 
check out that wateright repair video i sent… get good at that and you’ll never get stuck with naked edges you can’t repair again.
Kyle, I have watched your video before, and again today. My problem is I’m not understanding what modeling procedures I should be doing to reduce later problems. Especially at this scale. Most of my work has been architectural.
This is where I’ve reached with this piece. I cannot filet the joint marked. I don’t know what I should have done to make the edge joint so it would filet.
Thumb_TAB2.3dm (4.3 MB)
Try using simple unjoined curves, build simple surfaces, then intersect them, and finally do the G2 filleting (use Pipe to establish the trim boundaries, then insert BlendSrf or EdgeSrf with subsequent matching). You have a classic “Y” fillet corner. I did half of it, so you have something to experiment with ; )
Wow. Thanks so much for your effort. I don’t think I’ve ever used the tools Pipe or EdgeSrf. I’ll have to educate myself on those.
@CalypsoArt
check this out-
Agreed. I have no Idea how to do that. I’ll delve into figuring it out later. I expect it entails tools I’ve never used.
you are familiar with Sky’s amazing primary surfacing series, yes?
if not, you are in for a treat..
I am. But that does not pertain to an Alias/ICEM to Rhino transition. See how even the most simple things fail in Rhino, or how there is a lack of interactive feedback, or how the user is put into a wild guess mode ; )
that was aimed at @CalypsoArt
Hi Kyle, no, that was aimed at McNeel (“NURBS modelling for Windows”), where just too many NURBS modelling features are working in specific circumstances, and sometimes not, the users left without explanation ; )
no, i get that.
my comment about the video series was for @CalypsoArt
your comment is a whole different thread, which I am happy to discuss with you anytime you’d like.
post away about any issues you have, but make a new thread please.
sorry for the confusion
No sweat.
How do you go about this problem?
