Getting fillets to work on 3D solids

Post the geometry.

Anyway, I have several parts which are rounded pieces. Specifically, closed polylines made up of a few arcs, then extruded. A simple geometry, actually. When I try to apply a fillet to the 3D solid, I can do so just fine on SOME of the arc edges, but others result in an error similar to the following:

"Could not find acceptable sequence of capping faces to trim blend face. Failed to perform blend Failure while filleting"

Why would this be? The radius is certainly small enough to be possible. The arcs meet almost tangental to each other (no sharp angles). I have tried various radius settings and other settings I can think of. No luck.

Has anyone had a problem like this? More importantly, has anyone SOLVED it?

Any ideas how to work around? For instance, different ways to draw? Some unknown variables? Any code fixes?

I need to make this work, somehow, and modeling this shape with a fillet would be exceedinly difficult.

I've been in the same boat - a pain indeed.

Often, I find I can slice the part in halves or quarters, fillet the pieces separately, then union them back together. At least this can isolate where the problem is occurring and maybe a clue about how to model things differently so you don't get stuck. Maybe slice at the transition points where curved edges meet straight edges.

I've sometimes scaled a part up by 10, fillet with a 10x radius, then scaled it back down again. Whatever it takes...

Good luck.

-Bill

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Apr> I am dabbling with a small machine part. I've done a lot of architectural

I'm now on version 2007, with all the big 3d upgrades and I have had this problem a few times already, As Bill says, slicing it up usually fixes this, if by any chance I cant get it to work in autocad I always have the option of taking it into max and doing it there, but not everyone will have that luxury unfortunately.

Hate to sound ignorant but how would I post it here? Should I use uuencode or something? (I haven't had to post on a newsgroup in the past, usually just web-based blogs)

I can post a very simple example of the geometry and a minor modification which made it almost work.

architectural

Hmm. I should have thought about slicing the part. Good idea. I will try. Scaling, eh? That actually works? Any more than just changing the units? You'd think the code would be smart enough to avoid problems like that. Which is why I wonder why there's no "fix" available, or that an updated version of ACAD wouldn't work better (I'm using ACAD 2000).

architectural

Not sure what you mean by "normal" line, unless you mean drawing the segments first then converting to a close polyline? That's what I did, actually. I made 4 arcs, 2 to generate the long curve, 2 for each "end", then converted to a polyline, then extruded.

Anyway, I have several parts which are rounded pieces. Specifically, closed polylines made up of a few arcs, then extruded. A simple geometry, actually. When I try to apply a fillet to the 3D solid, I can do so just fine on SOME of the arc edges, but others result in an error similar to the following:

"Could not find acceptable sequence of capping faces to trim blend face. Failed to perform blend Failure while filleting"

Why would this be? The radius is certainly small enough to be possible. The arcs meet almost tangental to each other (no sharp angles). I have tried various radius settings and other settings I can think of. No luck.

Has anyone had a problem like this? More importantly, has anyone SOLVED it?

Any ideas how to work around? For instance, different ways to draw? Some unknown variables? Any code fixes?

I need to make this work, somehow, and modeling this shape with a fillet would be exceedinly difficult.

Anyway, I have several parts which are rounded pieces. Specifically, closed polylines made up of a few arcs, then extruded. A simple geometry, actually. When I try to apply a fillet to the 3D solid, I can do so just fine on SOME of the arc edges, but others result in an error similar to the following:

"Could not find acceptable sequence of capping faces to trim blend face. Failed to perform blend Failure while filleting"

Why would this be? The radius is certainly small enough to be possible. The arcs meet almost tangental to each other (no sharp angles). I have tried various radius settings and other settings I can think of. No luck.

Has anyone had a problem like this? More importantly, has anyone SOLVED it?

Any ideas how to work around? For instance, different ways to draw? Some unknown variables? Any code fixes?

I need to make this work, somehow, and modeling this shape with a fillet would be exceedinly difficult.

MDT?

It's too bad ACAD can't handle this, since it seems pretty straightforward if the programmers would bother to fix it...

Anyway, I have several parts which are rounded pieces. Specifically, closed polylines made up of a few arcs, then extruded. A simple geometry, actually. When I try to apply a fillet to the 3D solid, I can do so just fine on SOME of the arc edges, but others result in an error similar to the following:

"Could not find acceptable sequence of capping faces to trim blend face. Failed to perform blend Failure while filleting"

Why would this be? The radius is certainly small enough to be possible. The arcs meet almost tangental to each other (no sharp angles). I have tried various radius settings and other settings I can think of. No luck.

Has anyone had a problem like this? More importantly, has anyone SOLVED it?

Any ideas how to work around? For instance, different ways to draw? Some unknown variables? Any code fixes?

I need to make this work, somehow, and modeling this shape with a fillet would be exceedinly difficult.