2011

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33 
Surface Modeling
Inadditionto3Dsolidandmeshobjects,AutoCAD2011offerstwodifferenttypesofsurfaces:
proceduralandNURBS(non‐uniformrationalb‐spline).Proceduralsurfacesareassociativeandhave
history.NURBSsurfacesarenotassociativeanddonothavehistory.Instead,theyhavecontrolvertices
thatallowyoutosculpt
shapesinawaythatisclosertohowyouwouldoperateintherealworld.You
canuseproceduralsurfacestotakeadvantageofassociativemodelinganduseNURBSsurfacestotake
advantageofsculptingwithcontrolvertices.Atypicalsurfacemodelingworkflowmightbe:
 Createamodel
thatcombines3Dsolids,surfaces,andmeshobjects.
 Convertthemodeltoproceduralsurfacestotakeadvantageofassociativemodeling.
 ConverttheproceduralsurfacestoaNURBSmodelwiththeCONVTONURBScom mandtotake
advantageofNURBSediting.
 Checkforimperfectionsandwrinkleswiththesurfaceanalysistools.
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 Ifnecessary,rebuildthesurfacestorestoresmoothnesswiththeCVREBUILDcommand.
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ThenewSurfacetabontheribbonprovideseasyaccesstosurfacemodelingtools.
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Figure65.Surfaceribbontab
SurfaceCreationTools
AutoCAD2011enablesyoutocreatethreenewanalyticsurfacetypes:Blend,Patch,and Network.
AblendsurfacecreatesasmoothtransitionbetweenexistingsurfacesusingthenewSURFBLEND
command.Youcanspecifyhowtheblendsurfaceflowsattheedgethatmeetsandtouchestheother
surfaces
usingthegripmenuoptions.
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Figure66.Blendedsurface
ThenewPatchsurfacetoolenablesyoutocloseor“patch”anopen,closed‐edgeobject.Itgeneratesa
newpatchsurfaceforanyboundingedgethatisaclosedloop.