Direction: EXTRUDE NORMAL (average) question

Hi All,

I have a wavy surface. Moving along in all directions.

I thicken this surface, 1" solid.

If I go to put a bunch of irregular holes in it, I end up having “straight-through” walls instead of walls that follow the direction of the surface.

Is there a way to take a shape, project it on to my surface and extrude it in the normal direction which would be an average since the directions are all changing?

Hope this makes sense and someone out there can guide me. Thanks! z

Hi @zale_orcid
It really depends on how you “put a bunch of holes in it”? Without seeing your specific geometry and how your holes are arranged, my initial thought would be to make the holes before you offset/thicken the surface. That way, the walls of the holes will follow the surface. Another option is to use createuvcrv, layout the holes in the resulting border, and then re-apply them with applycrv. The you can use the fin command to extrude them normal to your surface. There’s probably oher ways too - but without an example, it’s hard to tell.
HTH, Jakob

Cool thank you. Does any of this work on a subd surface? particularly fin operation? do we have an interpolate on subd?

Hello - you can InterpCrvOnSrf on a SubD face but not the overall object. Fin works the same - per face.
-Pascal