Create offset surface

On the ribbon, click 3D Model tab Surface panel Thicken/Offset . In Select mode, choose Quilt or Face to specify the geometry to select. The default is Face. In Output, click surface. Click the More tab to select options: Select Create Vertical Surfaces to create offset surfaces with vertical sides joined to the original surface. Select Automatic Face Chain to select tangent continuous faces. Optionally, change how approximate offset solutions are computed. To prevent approximate offsets, clear the Allow approximation check box. To determine where the deviation is distributed, click the arrow to select from the list. To specify the accuracy of the computation, click the appropriate option. If Specify tolerance is selected, enter a tolerance in the box. On the Thicken/Offset tab, choose Select, and then click faces or a quilt to offset. Specify the offset distance. If the surface does not have vertical sides, you can enter zero as the distance. If desired, click the down arrow to use the Measure command, Show dimensions, or select a recently used value. Set the direction of the offset, then click OK. If an approximation is used, click OK in the message box to accept the results or Edit to return to the Thicken/Offset More tab.

You can offset one or more faces from a part face or a quilt . Offset surfaces do not add or remove mass.

If desired, you can create copies of surfaces with a zero distance offset, but not surfaces with vertical sides. This can be useful when you want to make a copy of an entire surface body or a set of individual faces from any solid model or surface.

Note: You cannot create vertical surfaces to join an offset surface to a solid part.