Joining entities/chaining question

[SScnc]

I've been doing pretty good with X3 on most things but the one thing I keep having trouble with is creating a chain. In the screen capture below, the item shown is made up of 3 parts,top spline, small spline on lower right and the horizontal line on bottom.

The goal for me here is to do an offset around the outer perimeter to leave material in that offset border while inside and outside surfaces will be milled down.

I can get the top splines to offset fine but the bottom line is always left out. How can I join these so that it will produce a clean offset ?

Thanks for any help,

Steve

[tstom]

If I'm understanding you right you are using
Xform/offset Try holding down the shift key when you pick the chain if the chain is closed that will pick the whole chain
I'm not shure if Xform/offset will work on 2 different entities like that you might try Xform/ offset contour

[Superman]

This may be that your chaining tolerance is set too fine

If the startpoint of the next entity is not within the tolerance of the last endpoint it is considered as end of chain.

Many senarios create this situation,
1- simplify ( when you convert splines to arcs )
2- create geometry from surfaces ( result is close, but may not be close enough and you end up with double entities where surfaces join, and many branch points )
3- geometry imported from other applications

Minimise this by creating both geometry and surfaces from solids.

If you have to alter geometry, work on a copy on another level and color ( compare the result if it is critical )

[cadcam]

use Xforn offset contour. you will be prompted with the chain manger were you can pick the hole chain of Enitiys at once and offset them together.

[SScnc]

Originally Posted by cadcam use Xforn offset contour. you will be prompted with the chain manger were you can pick the hole chain of Enitiys at once and offset them together.

Thanks guys,

I had done as you state cadcam and it did offset but it offset the individual entities and left a gap between them. What I ended up doing was to redo the entire shape using manual spline and connecting the ends and this made a continuous chain.

I then used "modify spline and got it to the correct shape. I was then able to offset it to the correct size. Strange thing about this is that after the file was saved, I could no longer use the modify spline function on that entity.


Superman,

I'll check into the tolerance settings and in the future I'll try doing this sort of thing as a solid.

Thanks again,

Steve

[cadcam]

Well I tried making this as close to your shape as I can see without having the file it self.
But I am figuring that most of it is splines and a line.
I have created this to show you that doing the Xform offset should work for you. but without see the detail you are using for sure.

http://www.mastercam-cadcam.com/vide...lineoffset.wmv

[SScnc]

Thanks cadcam for spending time doing that, it worked and I really appreciate it !

You're right, it is splines and a line. I don't know now exactly what I was doing wrong but that's got it.

Best regards !

Steve