Dome
Dome puts a rounded cap on a flat face of the part, like the top of a button, a knob or a rivet head. With Reverse it cuts a dish into the face instead. It is one step in the Model tree.
When to Use It
- Round over the end of a round bar, a pin or a post
- Make a domed button, knob or cap on a disc
- Cut a shallow dish into the top of a plate or a boss
- Make a tall, egg shaped end with the Elliptical option
Step by Step
- Open the model for modeling, then click Advanced on the Features tab, then Dome. The Dome panel opens.
- Click the flat face to dome in the view. It is lit orange. Click the lit face again to drop it, or click another face to pick that one instead.
- Type the Height. It starts at 5 mm (0.25 in when you work in inches). You can type any unit, like 3 mm or 1/8 in.
- Tick Elliptical for half an ellipsoid instead of a round dome, if you want it.
- Tick Reverse for a dish cut into the face instead of a dome on it.
- Click Dome (the button reads Dish when Reverse is ticked). The volume of the part is shown when it is done.
Options
- Height: how far the dome rises above the face, or how deep the dish goes into it. More than 0.
- Elliptical: unticked, the dome is part of a ball (a round, spherical dome); it can be at most half as tall as the face is across, which makes a half ball. Ticked, it is half an ellipsoid, the face's width across and the height you type up; it can be up to 10 times taller than half the face across.
- Reverse: makes a dish (a concave dome) cut into the face, the same shape turned the other way.
Round Faces and Other Faces
- On a round face (the end of a round bar, or a disc) the dome sits exactly on the round edge. A 40 mm round bar with a 5 mm dome gains 3.14 x 5 x (3 x 20 x 20 + 5 x 5) / 6 = 3207 cubic mm.
- On any other flat face (a square, a rectangle, a slot) the dome is the same round dome over the circle around the face, trimmed to the face's edges. It meets the face only at its farthest corner and rises straight up from the other edges, like a pillow cut square. The height is measured at the middle of the face.
Edit It Later
Right-click the step in the Model tree and choose Edit Feature. You can change the Height, Elliptical and Reverse in place without picking the face again. The step is named Dome and sits in the Bodies group.
Tips and What to Expect
- The face must be flat and have no holes in it. A round side of a bar is curved, so it cannot take a dome.
- If an earlier step makes the part taller, the dome finds its face again on the new top.
- A dome on one body leaves the other bodies alone, and every body keeps its name.
- There is no dashed preview yet: press Dome and use Undo if the result is not what you wanted.
Common Problems
- "Dome works on a flat face, and that face is curved." Click a flat face, like the end of a round bar or the top of a plate.
- "That face has a hole in it, so a dome cannot cover it." Pick a face with no holes, or fill the hole first.
- "A round dome on this face can be at most ... mm tall." A round dome taller than that would hang past the face. Type a smaller height, or tick Elliptical.
- "That dish is deeper than the part is thick under the face, so it would break through." Type a smaller height.
- "The face this dome sits on is no longer on the part." An earlier step changed or removed it. Delete the Dome step and make it again on the face you want.
- "Type a dome height more than 0." The Height box is empty, 0 or negative.