Stitch surfaces (construction environment) dialog box

Stitches surfaces together to form a quilt or solid. Surface edges must be adjacent to each other to stitch successfully. The Stitch command has a tolerance control that provides an upper limit and helps Autodesk Inventor determine the proper edges that are used for stitching.

Access
Ribbon: Construction tab Surface panel Stitch

Selects individual or all surfaces to stitch together to form a quilt or solid body, or to analyze suitability for stitching.

The quilt is not parametric. When individual surfaces are modified, they can be selected and analyzed for suitability before joining them together in a quilt. After stitching, the quilt can be analyzed to identify edges that may not have stitched.

Following analysis and stitching, surfaces can be promoted to the part environment. For best results, stitch imported surfaces together in the construction environment before you promote them to the part environment.

Stitch tab
Surfaces
Selects individual or all surfaces to stitch together into a quilt or for analysis. Surfaces are highlighted in the graphics window as they are selected.
Maximum Tolerance
Select or enter a value for the maximum allowable tolerance between free edges.
Find Remaining Free Edges
Displays the free edges that remain after stitching and the maximum gap between them.
  • Select a row item, and right-click on it to display the context menu.
  • Select Find in Window to zoom in on the edge.
  • Select Set as Tolerance to quickly change the maximum tolerance used in stitching.
  • Free edge pairs display the value of the maximum gap between them.
  • Free edge pairs which partially exceed the maximum tolerance display the minimum gap in Red (meaning that the gap is within tolerance but not fixed).
  • Free edges without pairs display no gap value.
Analyze tab
Analyzes selected surfaces and marks surface edges with condition to indicate suitability for stitching into a quilt. Identifies surfaces that have gaps or tolerance errors.
Show Edge Conditions
Identifies surface edges by color to show analysis results.
  • Black edges are stitched to an adjacent surface.
  • Red edges are free edges on a surface, and are not stitched to an adjacent surface.
Show Near Tangent
Shows near tangent conditions.
  • Magenta edges have some discontinuity to the adjacent surface (are nearly tangent). These edges can cause failures in subsequent design operations such as creating a shell.
    Note: Using this option can affect performance.