Need help with loft error

Are you lofting surfaces or solids?

You could of course put a circle inside the cylinder, loft to that and then let SW do the intersection.

TOP

Adam,

The problem you are experiencing has to do with the approximate nature of projected curve - it is a curve projected on a surface lying on that surface at a number of points but does not exactly bisect the surface, when it comes to merging with the other solid, that tolerance/ intolerance gets in the way of the Boolean. Fortunately there is a work around, and that is to work with implicit topology or edges of the model.

Instead of projecting the curve onto the surface using the Insert>Curve>Split and split the face with the sketch. Now try your Insert>Boss>loft and it should work.

Second, you could Insert>Surface>Loft and do a Fill surface on the edge of the end cap that is at the cylinder and then do a planar surface face on the Loft start profile sketch, knit all three together (using form solid command) then combine with cylinder.

I'm not quite sure about my explanation so I'm going to submit your issue because this should work (from a user's standpoint)

The loft profiles need to have the same number of segments as a basic rule. Break the ellipse into two segments and it will work.

ca

Thanks for the help everyone - TOP, I tried insert>curve>split but get the same error as before, also tried the fill surface trick which did actually work but presented problems further down the track when I wanted to cut through the filled surface. In the end I settled for your suggestion of putting the circle inside the circle and lofting to that, which gave me a workable solution although not quite the exact geometry I wanted. FYI, it is a race engine intake port and manifold system that I'm playing with so the actual geometry of the finished part will be fettled by hand anyway...

Clay - Im intrigued by your suggestion also as when I tried playing with different start profiles, SW was sometimes happy to loft up to the projected curve? No matter how many segments though, I still couldn't get it to work with the start profile that I wanted to use.

Appreciate the Help!

I want to reinforce TOP's advice. You should not define your loft with a "potato chip" curve like you show. Define the final loft section such that your loft penetrates the cylinder and naturally produces the resulting intersection you need. Otherwise, you will end up with a ratty surface prone to trouble.

If you need to control the loft-cylinder intersection closely, use the projected curve to determine the location of guide curve to control your loft and/or help define your final section.

Here's an example of using split to get the loft to flow..

OK, Thanks again everyone. The least complex solution for what im doing was to place my loft profile just inside the cylinder and let SW look after the intersection. ZXYS - I appreciate your time spent on that example - Its always educational to look how someone else constructs various parts. In your model theres a couple of features that I didnt even know existed (composite curve & delete face). Adam.

Kewl...

BTW, I added some more to it or made it into something else... so if you want to see other methods,.. download it again... it's the -b version

=2E. 8^)