First of all, let's thank our generous sponsors: Dave Bear, John Stoltzfus, Dan Pihlaja and Kelvin Lamport!!!. Without them, there would be no points to award our winners.
Thank to all who participated in this challenge. I was delighted to discover bits of genius sprinkled throughout your features. Hope you were too!
Let's discuss the various techniques employed by participants.
The first entry was submitted less than 2 hours after the challenge was launched. Jeremy Feist proposed a very straightforward technique, based on the functionality of the Intersect Tool. Intersect is what I call a "SuperFeature", since it is capable of replacing multiple single-purpose or limited-purposes tools like:
- Split
- Combine (add, subtract, common)
- Replace face
- Cut with surface
- Extrude Up To...
- Knit and Form Solid
- Trim and Form Solid
- Delete/ Keep Body
- and probably a few more
Jeremy wanted to get the job done fast, so he chipped away (actually filled away) at the cavity by repeating 2 simple steps:
- Create plane
- Intersect to fill part of the cavity and merge solids.
Jeremy's first entry was submitted at 18:42 on September 7th. As he pointed out later, he forgot to merge 3 solid bodies.
To fix that, he submitted a second solution at 11:29 on September 10th.
The second entry was submitted by Henk Bruijn De at 1:34 on September 9th. He proposed a more traditional technique, where the cavities were filled by boss features (mainly extrude and revolve). I really liked his trick for merging specific areas, consisting in:
- Offset Surface
- Thicken and Merge
He also demonstrated how a user who is out-of-time can fill gaps by any means, including using the Loft feature. Of course, that user should be aware that the final geometry will differ from the initial one, since Loft is not a reverse engineering tool.
The third entry was submitted by Alex Burnett at 11:30 on September the 10th. He used 33 features to get the job done.
Alex make great use of two of the best reverse engineering tools in SOLIDWORKS: the Delete&Patch and Move Face features.
A very elegant solution, Alex!
The fourth entry was submitted by Ingvar Magnusson at 14:05 on September the 10th. His concern was preserving the dimensional aspect of the geometry.
Ingvar was the first to provide a detailed play-by-play commentary that can be used as a tutorial by any user interested in learning how to simplify imported geometry. Writing such tutorials is a huge service to the SOLIDWORKS Community.
Thank you, Ingvar!
The fifth entry was submitted by Bill Toft at 20:34 on September the 10th. Bill used a hybrid technique, showing his skills on working with both solids and surfaces. I witness similar approaches in real-life from veteran users who need to get a job done fast and move on to the next. Bill also organized his feature tree in a logical manner using folders (one folder for each of the features affecting a body). I liked his methodical approach of working with one body at a time. The other advantage to this method is a very short rebuild time. Mind you, at the end of any simplification, most users would round-trip the model through Parasolid or use the ConvertToBodies command to remove all features.
The sixth entry was submitted by Heiko Sohnholz. His approach was very similar to Jeremy's. A very elegant sequence of Plane and Intersect, mixed with a couple of Extrude-Bosses used as shortcuts.
Heiko took this challenge one step forward. Those who work with large assemblies, know how important is to minimize the number of graphics-triangles that need to be computed by the CPU. One of the most important source of triangles is coming from non-planar faces where one dimension is much larger than the other. Chamfers and fillets are the usual culprits. So, Heiko took the time to eliminate most of the cosmetic rounds and fillets. Really impressive stuff! Now this part can be really used in production.
Not really happy with the first model, Heiko submitted another one. This time, he employed the Delete&Patch feature much mode.
Two different techniques, same great result from Heiko!
The seventh entry was submitted by Jerome De San Nicolás at 11:24 on September the 17th. Jerome used a method that is typical for users well versed in surface modeling. He copied the external faces and build watertight volumes, there were turned in solid bodies using the Knit feature. He also found an interesting way to benefit from local symmetry in the part.
The eight entry was submitted by Alexander Klammer at 16:00 on September the 20th. He even provided an Assembly Visualization report showing the benefits of spending time simplifying geometry. Not only the part loads faster, but there will be significant time savings in operation, considering that the graphics data has been reduced by 95%!!!
Alexander's first example used a "sculpting" technique, by successively filling volumes with the Boss-Extrude feature. Reverse Engineering tools like Delete&Patch were used a lot too. Like Heiko, Alexander submitted a second file with all rounds eliminated and he used it in the Assembly Visualization study. Great job, Alexander.
Congratulations to all participants! Great solutions and great comments!
You make selecting a winner very, very hard.
Congratulations to Jeremy Feist for being the first participant to submit a valid solution. He beat Alex Burnett by 1 minute! Jeremy is awarded 5,000 points.
Congratulations to Alex Burnett and Jeremy Feist for being the first to provide very clean, elegant solutions. Each won 10,000 points!
Congratulations to Ingvar Magnusson for winning 5,000 points for writing a tutorial on geometry simplification.
Congratulations to Heiko Sohnholz, Alexander Klammer, Bill Toft, Jerome De San Nicolás and Henk Bruijn De for winning 1,000 points for their original solutions.
One more thing: Test the new SOLIDWORKS 2019 functionality for the Defeature Tool. Too bad it does not work in parts directly; you have to turn the multi-body part in an assembly first.
Try it and let us know what you think!
Update: All Certificates are attached to this post.
