Stitched surfaces

Surfaces that originate in other CAD systems can have data inconsistencies or other irregularities that must be repaired before they are suitable for use in parametric models. For best results, use the Quality Check command in the construction environment to analyze surfaces before using them in the part environment.

Surfaces stitched in both construction and part environments

The Stitch command differs in its capabilities and results in the construction and part environments:

	Construction environment	Part environment
Surfaces	Uses only construction surfaces in the construction environment.	Uses only surfaces in the part environment.
Operations	Analyzes and marks surface edges to show which can be successfully stitched into a quilt. Specialized tools repair data errors.	Analyzes and marks surface edges to show which can be successfully stitched into a quilt. Specialized tools repair data errors.
Browser	No feature created. Operations are not parametric and have no history.	Stitched surfaces create a stitch feature and place an icon in the browser. Like other features, can be used in parametric editing operations, such as suppressed rollbacks, and so on.
Results	Geometry remains in the construction environment and can be selected and promoted later.	All surfaces, including the surfaces that do not successfully stitch, reside in the part environment.

Option to select individual surfaces or all surfaces

In most cases, when importing hundreds of surfaces, stitch all surfaces into a quilt or solid body in the construction environment. You can then copy it to the part environment as a single body, or if necessary, a few bodies. In this case, use the All Surfaces option. To improve processing speed, this option does not highlight each selected surface in the graphics window. After you click Stitch, it displays the stitching progress on the status bar.

Once selected, you can analyze surfaces to identify the faces that cannot be stitched, and then stitch the eligible surfaces.

Note: During the stitch operation, the outer edges of the selected surfaces are considered. When stitching, be sure to select all the surrounding surfaces so they are evaluated in the stitch. Selecting only two surfaces at a time can yield unwanted results.

Results of using surfaces that you cannot stitch into quilt

When you use Stitch to analyze surfaces in the construction environment, the analysis results are shown as color-marked surface edges.

• Black edges are stitched to adjacent surfaces to form a quilt.
• Red edges in a quilt indicate free edges of a surface. Red edges also indicate the outer edge of the quilt if the quilt does not enclose a volume.
• Magenta edges are stitched to adjacent edges, but the joined edges are not tangent. You can use the surfaces; however, the near-tangent edges may not be suitable for some design operations, such as creating a shell.

You may need to repair the surfaces to remove gaps or make sure the edges fall within tolerances to create a quilt successfully.