Direct Edit
Direct Edit changes a solid by its faces, with no sketch and no feature to edit. It works the same on a part you modeled and on a part you opened from a STEP file, which has no feature history at all. It has three ways: Delete a face, Move a flat face, and Offset a set of faces. Each one is one step in the Model tree.
When to Use It
- Take a hole, a round, a chamfer, a boss or a pocket off an imported part (Delete with Heal)
- Close an opening with one new face, leaving the faces around it as they are (Delete with Patch)
- Make an imported plate thicker or a slot deeper by moving one face (Move)
- Grow or shrink a part by a set amount on several faces at once, or make a hole or a shaft a little bigger or smaller (Offset)
Step by Step
- Open the model for modeling, then click Direct Edit on the Features tab. The Direct Edit panel opens.
- Pick what to do: Delete, Move or Offset.
- Click the faces in the view. Each picked face is lit orange. Click a lit face again to drop it, or click Clear Faces to drop them all. Move takes one flat face; a new click picks that face instead.
- Set the options for the way you picked (below).
- Click the button at the bottom: Delete Faces, Move Face or Offset Faces. The volume of the part is shown when it is done.
Options
- Delete: takes the picked faces off the part and closes the gap.
- Heal: the faces around grow along their own surfaces until they meet and close the gap, as if the hole, round or boss was never made. Delete every face of a feature (all the faces of a boss, or both halves of a hole) to take the whole feature away.
- Patch: the faces around stay exactly as they are, and each opening left behind is closed by one new face across its edges. The new face is flat when the edges of the opening lie in one plane, and a smooth curved face when they do not.
- Move: moves one flat face. The faces around it follow: each grows or shrinks along its own surface to meet the face where it now is.
- Distance: how far the face moves, square to itself. A plus distance moves it out of the material (the part grows), a minus distance moves it into the material (the part shrinks).
- Vector: type the move as X, Y and Z in the model directions instead. Only the part of the move square to the face counts: a flat face sliding along itself changes nothing, because the faces around it stay where they are. A move that runs only along the face is refused.
- Offset: moves every picked face along its own outward direction by the Distance. Plus grows the part at those faces, minus shrinks it.
- Flat faces move one after another, so faces that meet at a corner stay meeting with a sharp corner.
- A round face must be a whole hole or a whole shaft, picked all the way round (a round face can come in two halves: pick both), with flat ends square to it. Plus makes a hole smaller and a shaft bigger; minus makes a hole bigger and a shaft smaller.
Worked Examples
- A block 4 in x 3 in x 1 in: Move its top face by 0.25 in. The block is now 1.25 in tall and gains 4 x 3 x 0.25 = 3 cubic in (49161 cubic mm).
- The same block: Offset its top face and its front face by 0.1 in. It becomes 4 x 3.1 x 1.1 in, a gain of 1.64 cubic in.
- A plate with a 0.75 in hole right through it: Delete the hole's face with Heal and the plate is solid again. With Patch the same: the two round openings are flat, so each is closed by a flat round face.
- A block with a 45 degree chamfer along one top edge: Move the top face up and the chamfer grows up with it to meet the top where it now is, rather than a straight wall standing on it.
Edit It Later
Right-click the step in the Model tree and choose Edit Feature. You can switch a Delete between Heal and Patch (tick Patch), or change the Distance of a Move or an Offset, or the X, Y and Z of a Move by vector, without picking the faces again. The steps are named Delete Face, Move Face and Offset Face and sit in the Bodies group. If an earlier step makes the part taller, a moved or offset flat face is found again where it is now.
Tips and What to Expect
- All the picked faces must be on one body. Make one step per body.
- A move or offset that would run into another body is refused: bodies are kept apart.
- Move works on flat faces only. To change a round face, use Offset on the whole hole or shaft.
- Offset does not work on cones, balls, rounds (a part of a round face) or free-form faces yet. Delete with Heal or Patch works on any face.
- A face next to a round that meets it smoothly cannot move: the round cannot follow. Delete the round first, move the face, and round the edge again.
- Delete the floor of a pocket with Heal and its walls run on down until they meet the far side, so the pocket becomes a hole through the part. Delete the floor and the walls together to fill the pocket.
- Up to 200 faces at a time. A step that takes longer than 30 seconds is stopped and the part is left as it was.
- There is no dashed preview yet: press the button and use Undo if the result is not what you wanted.
Common Problems
- "Move Face moves flat faces, and that face is curved." Click a flat face, or use Offset for a whole hole or shaft.
- "That move runs along the face, which changes nothing." Type a Vector with some part square to the face, or use Distance.
- "The faces around it cannot follow that move." A face beside it meets it smoothly (a round) or the move is too far for the faces around it. Try a smaller distance, or delete the round next to it first.
- "That move would run the face past a face around it." The face would pass through or swallow a face beside it, like a pocket floor moved up past the top of the part. Type a smaller distance.
- "That move would leave the body in pieces" or "would leave nothing of the body." The face would pass through the far side of the part. Type a smaller distance.
- "That offset would close the hole up." The distance is as big as the hole's radius. To fill a hole, use Delete with Heal.
- "Offset works on a round face only when it goes all the way round." Pick every piece of the hole or shaft, or use Move on flat faces.
- "Heal could not take that face away: the faces around would never meet to close the gap." Heal cannot close it (the faces around would never meet, like the top face of a plain block). Try Patch, or pick every face of the feature.
- "Patch would put back the same face, so nothing would change." The opening is flat and the face you picked was already flat across it. Try Heal.
- "A face this ... works on is no longer on the part." An earlier step changed or removed it. Edit the step and pick the faces again.
- "Type the distance, like 0.1 in or 2 mm." The Distance box is empty or does not hold a length.
- "Type a distance other than 0." The Distance box holds 0 (or less than a thousandth of a mm).