Lateral Edge Tangency in Skinning and Lofting
When an incoming wire profile has multiple coedges, skinning can result in multiple skinned faces. A lateral edge is the edge that connects these adjacent skinned faces. This lateral edge passes through the vertices of the wire profile (these vertices come either from input or may have been generated in the skin breakup algorithm). A vertex in the incoming wire profile may be G1 (that is, the adjacent profile coedges meet tangentially at the vertex) or non-G1 (that is, the adjacent profile coedges are not tangent at the vertex). If the vertices that a lateral edge has made by skinning pass through and are all G1, the lateral edge will also be made G1 (that is, the adjacent skinned faces will be made tangential along the lateral edge).
Note: If the "merge_wirecoedges" skin-option is set to TRUE, then the skinning API removes the G1 vertices by merging adjacent coedges. Thus, there would be no lateral edge corresponding G1 vertices.
A sample case of skinning is illustrated in the following two figures. In Figure. Incoming Profile Wires the orange-colored vertices are G1 vertices; specifically, the adjacent profile coedges meet tangentially at those vertices. In Figure. Skinned Faces the orange-colored edges are G1 lateral edges; the adjacent skinned faces are tangential along the lateral edge.
Figure. Incoming Profile Wires
Figure. Skinned Faces
In the above example, it can be noted that the skinned faces are tangential
along the lateral edges, because the respective coedges of the input wire
profiles were tangential to each other. However, tangency of lateral edges is
not guaranteed in the following special situations:
[Top]
© 1989-2007 Spatial Corp., a Dassault Systèmes company. All rights reserved.