I’ve searched previous topics but couldn’t find a definitive solution, so I’m opening this thread.
I’m looking for a quick way to delete fillets in Rhino 8. In FreeCAD, I just select the fillet surface, click “Defeature” (delete face), and it’s gone. It’s very simple.
Is there a similarly easy way to do this directly in Rhino? Or should I keep exporting to FreeCAD every time I need to remove a fillet?
(See my attached workflow image)
Thanks!
Unfortunately, “unfilleting” or “defeaturing” is not possible in Rhino, see here.
Alternatively for straight profiles you can sketch the correct profile (snapping to your imported geometry) and extrude as solid geometry.
But yes - you’ll need to manually rebuild it in Rhino. No option to quickly delete features.
Actually, I’m thinking of adopting a hybrid modeling workflow. Since FreeCAD is open-source and its ‘Defeature’ tool works perfectly for deleting complex fillets, I can export my model as a STEP file, remove the fillets in FreeCAD, and bring it back to Rhino to continue my work.
What do you think about this approach? Are there any major downsides, like data integrity issues, when using FreeCAD as a ‘helper’ to fill these parametric gaps in Rhino? Or is this a common workaround in the industry?
In “industry” you would choose a software that does what you need efficiently. If you are often changing fillets, I would rather work in Fusion, SolidWorks, etc.
Hi @erhnbi
One thing you must do in rhino is save many states of your model, and even after years I forget this sometimes.
One rule is always save a copy before you fillet or do any operations like Booleans, etc. Save that state to a new or different layer using the copy objects to layer command. Then you can go back or at least have a backup.
I like your method of using Freecad but you might run into difficulties on more complex Rhino objects possessing complex surfacing.
Saving a copy before filleting is a must in Rhino.
RM
Hi @erhnbi
I think it depends a lot on what kind of geometry (in terms of complexity) you are moving back and forth. We use both Rhino and Solidworks in-house, and I round-trip files a lot with close to no problems, but from time to time you’ll probably run into an object that will act up in one way or another. I don’t have any experience with FreeCAD, but in general STP is a very stable file format.
By the way, if the fillets are made in Rhino using FilletEdge, you can edit the fillet (eg. setting it back to 0) by double clicking the object or by running FilletEdge and choosing Edit in the command prompt - but as always with Rhino’s history, that’ll all go away as soon as you edit the object in any way (booleans, trims etc.).
-Jakob
