On an organic surface (solid part), I would like to create a recessed area (projected curve from sketch) with draft on the side walls. What is the SW equivalent to the Pro-E Offset Feature with Draft (shown in help menu below)? Is it a Wrap feature?

About the Offset Feature (Pro-E)

You can use the Offset tool to create a new feature by offsetting either a surface or a curve with a constant or variable distance. You can then use offset surfaces to build up geometry or to create patterned geometry, or you can use offset curves to build up a set of curves that you can then use to build a surface. Various options are available from within the Offset tool, such as adding drafts to offset surfaces and offsetting curves within a surface.

You can create the following types of Offset features using the Offset tool:

Standard - Offsets a single quilt, surface, or solid face.

Expand - Creates a continuous volume between the selected faces of a closed quilt or solid sketch or, when using the Sketched region option, of an open quilt or solid surface.

With Draft - Offsets the region of the quilt or surface that is included inside a sketch, and drafts the side surfaces. You can also create straight or tangent side surface profiles with this option.

Replace - Replaces a solid face with a quilt or datum plane.

Curve - Offsets a curve or the one-sided edge of a surface in a specified direction.


This link is an example of the Offset Feature tool inside Pro-E: Extrude to construction surface

In SolidWorks, an option I have considered is offset (copy) surface, split (deleting unused faces) and thicken. To get the side walls in the direction of pull (mold tooling), a ruled surface with draft could be used, then replace or cut the side walls to get the desired draft. This is a work-around and I am looking for a more straight-forward method.


Regards,

Chris Thompson

SolidWorks Office Premium 2007
Pro/Engineer Wildfire 3.0