A PowerShape solid is a single object that represents the outer shape of a physical body. It is made up of a number of surfaces that join together and match at their edges within a given tolerance.
You can create primitive solids, such as blocks, cylinders and cones, or create solids from other objects such as surfaces, meshes and wireframe lines and curves.
The shaded model below shows a PowerShape solid:
The solid is displayed in the Solid Feature Tree.
This solid is made of many surfaces that join together as shown below:
You can operate on a solid in the following ways:
- As a single entity. For example, if you move a solid, all the surfaces which define the solid move.
- On a solid with another solid. For example, you can intersect a solid with another solid. The intersecting solid defines a feature in the solid feature tree.
Note: PowerShape uses the Parasolid kernel to implement solid modelling commands. Solid models created in earlier versions of
PowerShape use version 8 solids. It is possible to
convert between version 8 and Parasolid.