Keep in Trim With CATIA
by Jay Bouvier, Mechanical Designer R&D Departent, CENIT America L&H Consultants Inc.

Here is a nice little tip that can be used when the trimming assistant (UNION TRIM) is not able to trim the wanted face (ERROR IN UPDATE SOFTWARE) because of the face you want to remove or keep is crossing the splitting element. This happens on any given solid where we would have no "REMOVE" or "KEEP" faces.

The following is a step by step explanation giving you an idea of the philosophy used. One good example is starting with two different size spheres, translated by half of the radius value and with a shell operation on each. In this case, we want to create a union trim and remove the intersected material. If a union trim follows, and in wire frame you select to remove the inside face, you should receive the following message: "ERROR IN UPDATE SOFTWARE".

Here is our TIP not mandatory in 4.22 and up versions but it stabilizes the solid tree: Create yourself a selectable surface. This can be done by simply substracting a simple solid (CUBOID, CYLINDER...) from the face to be removed. This will provide a selectable surface to remove while doing the UNION TRIM. Pictures with a detailed description can be found on the Cenit America Web site www.cenit-america.com.

Jay Bouvier, Mechanical Designer
R&D Department
CENIT America L&H Consultants inc.
6300, Cote-de-Liesse Suite 200
St-Laurent, Quebec, H4T 1E3
Tel: (514)-340-1818 (ext: 124)
Fax: (514)-340-1891
jbouvier@cenit-america.com
www.cenit-america.com
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