How to check convexity / concavity of edges in SW ?

According to who's definition? What you are talking about is dihedral angle or simply angle of intersection, no?

Hi Hequler,

Thanks for the message. No, i am not talking about the dihedral angle, although it is also defined wrt the angle between the adjacent face-normals.

Frankly, i could not get a reference on the net which I can give to clarify what I intend by convexity/concavity ... but the meaning that I want to convey is essentially as follows which I wrote in my initial post as well. "While filletting [or even chamfering] a convex edge, material gets removed while filletting [or chamfering] a concave edge, material gets added" Here, filletting is the modelling operation [in SW] which removes edges [sometime vertices] by introducing faces that are tangential to the adjacent surfaces.

If you could give some links which talk more about the definition of convexity that I have in mind, it will be of great help as well.

thanks, aditya

Do you want to do this manually or with a macro? Do you also need to know when the edge is both convex and concave?

If you do a construction why not create a plane normal to the edge, do an intersection curve and measure the angle between the two curves?

You could also do a spline on a surface and bring it up to the edge. Then do a 3D line tangent to the spline. If it goes into space it is convex and if it cuts into the adjacent suface it would be concave.

Thanx for reply. I am preferably looking for a manual [but quick] way rather than a macro. I work related to translations of models. So, i wanted a way to give a quick-check whether convexity of edge/vertex is being preserved when the model gets translated to other types.

The easiest way is to convert an entity into a 2D or 3D sketch, and show the curvature comb on it. The comb always sits on the outside of the curve. You can also show inflection points, which show where convexity changes from one side to another.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Matt, 'curvature comb' is specific to 2D, that too for non-linear curves only. It definitely helps deducing convexity in 2D scenario [which is the standard one and used more frequently], but doesn't really help me as I am looking for convexity of edge on a 3D solid. Please note as per the definition of edge-convexity, same type of edge can have both types of convexities. Just to illustrate, all 12 edges of cube are convex. If we consider extrude of an L shape, it will have 18 [=6*2 for L sketches + 6 due to extrusion ] edges. The edge that gets created at the lap-joint of L due to extrusion is the only concave edge for the part. Rest 17 edges are convex. regards, aditya

What happens is you simply try to apply a fillet / round feature? Does SW give you a preview or can you create it as a surface feature?

FWIW, what you are talking about is, in Pro/E parlance anyway, dihedral angle (for which there is an analysis feature).

Re checking translations; I've never seen problems such as you seem to want to check for as long as the system isn't `healing' on import. Rare are the systems today that can't write and read a list of control vertices and knot vectors correctly? If I wanted to check I might create some section curves, export them along with the surface set and compare to post translation section curves.

another maybe quick check - offset the surfaces and test for gaps and intersections.

Hi Cronik,

Thanks for the suggestion, indeed that's a good idea, but how to go about offsetting faces in SW ? I am aware of shelling which offsets the entire feature, but it might not be feasible to do shelling in all scenarios to find convexity of edge.

Regarding translations and going bit deeper, we have some more types of convexities, in addition to just plain convex / plain concave. ... viz. convex-smooth, concave-smooth, plain - smooth. When a fillet operation takes place to remove convex edge, the newly generated smoothened face has edges with convexity convex-smooth. When an edge is created on a planar face, it has convexity 'plain-smooth'. I understand that this jargon [plain-smooth, convex-smooth] is not standard but I hope you get what I am saying. There are cases in translation when a convex edge becomes convex-smooth etc.

regards, aditya

Curvature comb works in 2D or 3D sketch. Try it.

As for it being for non-linear entities only, yes, I assume that is a given since linear entities have no curvature and thus no concavity/convexity.

From your example of the L shape, I wouldn't call what you are looking for convexity. If you are looking for inside vs outside corners, for flat-faced parts you could measure the angle between the face normals of adjacent faces, 90 deg would determin inside/outside.

Maybe an easier way would be if a fillet > Hi Matt,

Isn't Tools -> Deviation Analysis what you are looking for?

-h-

Hi Matt,

I agree, i am not looking for what is generally referred to as convexity / concavity ... but rather inside / outside edges. But just checking the angle betn the face-normals doesn't help as this value is =90 for every edge on the L extrude. So, something more [sense] is needed to determine that.

Filletting is not an option for me as that's what I am using the convexity information for. As said by you, transition from inside to outside [or vice versa] can occur along the edge ... and that's why, strictly speaking, the property [of insidedness / outsidedness] should be evaluated at a given point along the edge.

regards, aditya

Another case, if an edge is a "tangent edge" (faces on either side are tangent to one another), the fillet technique won't work, and should give the error "smooth edges cannot be filleted".

Face normals have a sense, so for outside corners it would be 90 or -90, and for inside it would be 270 or -270. But for complex shapes, the edge condition doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the face normal, normals only work for flat faces.

Deviation analysis is a cool thing, but it measures all right angles as