Hi Marco,

> I suppose that the downscaling was necessary because of something about the tolerance,
> but i don't understand why.

Yes, that's correct. The problem was that the different blend surfaces were not fully crossing each other - in some places they would cross each other and in other areas they were a bit apart from one another. The trimming was about trying to get rid of the crossing each other areas. The "too far apart" areas were still out of join tolerance which is 0.005 units. By scaling it down the apart areas were then under 0.005 units apart from one another and so would join. It's possible that just the scaling down alone would do it, maybe the trimming was not needed after all.

This type of blend is a fairly difficult thing, it's possible to do something like force the surfaces to touch by altering the last row of control points so the pieces would touch but at the same time that breaks the continuity right at that same spot too.

Another thing I've thought about trying is to extend the blend surfaces sideways and then I might be able to intersect them better with each other. Someday I'd like to give that method a try.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

"...It's possible that just the scaling down alone would do it, maybe the trimming was not needed after all."

You're right ! (obviously.....)

I tried your suggestion and it works :
1) scale all to 0.1
2) create the G2 blend
3) join all and...

voila ! The piece is a solid!

The last part of your answer remain obscure for me...
"Another thing I've thought about trying is to extend the blend surfaces sideways and then I might be able to intersect them better with each other."

I tried to do a "scale 1D" on each single blended surface, but i think i misunderstood your thought.

But now it's not so important.

Thank you very much !

Marco.

Hi Marco,

> > "Another thing I've thought about trying is to extend the blend surfaces sideways and
> > then I might be able to intersect them better with each other."

> I tried to do a "scale 1D" on each single blended surface, but i think i misunderstood
> your thought.

Yeah I'm talking about a different kind of extension, one that keeps the current surface shape as it is and iit just grows outwarrd from there. That kind of extension can go a little crazy if the surface is very bendy though.

- MIchael

Hi Marco,

no, you understood right...but the planar command worked for me, as you can see.

Regards
Stefan

An alternative idea:

Do the Blend between two edges




select yellow edges,copy them and paste using same snap point (end-middle)



Extract isocurve from blended surface,snapping in the middle



delete blended surface,select three curves and two edges and do Network



repeat same operation with second set of edges :Blend surface-extract middle isocurve ,copy last yellow curve from Blend and copy first curve from Network.
Now do the second Network surface



Now join one by one all four surfaces ,then join with the rest and you'll obtain a solid



If you want to simulate better the Blend behavior you need to extract more curves:turn on points of blended surface




Extract isocurves snapping on the points



M

Hi Mauro,

Thank you very much for your effort and your suggestions.

It's a very smart method to operate, although it seems a bit complex.

But, evidently, to achieve a good result there's need to work hard :)

I will try it as soon as possible.

Thanks again,

Marco.