Mold Tools - Shut Off Surfaces

To cut a tooling block into two pieces, you need two complete surfaces (a core surface and a cavity surface) without any through holes. Shut-off surfaces close up the through holes. You create shut-off surfaces after you create the parting lines. A shut-off surface closes up a through hole by creating a surface patch along one of the following:

• Edges that form a continuous loop.

• A parting line you previously created to define a loop.

When you create shut-off surfaces, the software populates Cavity Surface Bodies and Core Surface Bodies with the appropriate surfaces. See Mold Folders.

To create shut off surfaces:

1. Click Shut-off Surfaces (Mold Tools toolbar) or Insert, Molds, Shut-off Surfaces.

2. In the PropertyManager, set the following options, then click .

Edges

• Edges . Lists the names of edges or parting lines selected for shut-off surfaces. In Edges you can:

• Select an edge or parting line in the graphics area to add or remove it from Edges .

• Select a name to identify the edge with a callout in the graphics area.

• Right-click and select Clear Selections to clear all selections from Edges .

• Right-click a selected loop in the graphics area and choose De-select Loop to remove it from Edges .

You can select edges manually. Select an edge in the graphics area, then use the selection tools to complete the loop.

You can define a parting line for a through hole in the Parting Line PropertyManager, then select it here to define the edge of the shut-off surface for the hole.

• Knit. Joins each shut-off surface into the cavity and core surfaces, so Cavity Surface Bodies and Core Surface Bodies each contain one surface body. When cleared, the surface patches are not knitted into the cavity and core surfaces, so Cavity Surface Bodies and Core Surface Bodies contain many surfaces. You might want to clear this option if you have a collection of poor quality surfaces (for example, with IGES import problems), and want to manually analyze and repair them after using the Shut-off Surfaces tool.

• Filter loops. Filters out loops that do not appear to be valid holes. If valid holes in your model are filtered out, clear this option.

• Show preview. Displays a preview of the patch surfaces in the graphics area.

• Show callouts. Displays a callout in the graphics area for each loop.

You can click a callout to change a loop from Contact to Tangent to No Fill. For a Tangent loop, you can click the arrow to change which faces are used for tangency. See Shut-Off Surface Fill Types.

Reset All Patch Types

Resets all the through hole surface patches to one of the following:

• All No-Fill .

• All Contact .

• All Tangent .

Only one Shut-Off Surface feature is allowed in a model. Therefore, within the one feature, you must assign a fill type of Contact, Tangent, or No Fill to every through hole.