BTW, I wish NX would add a "limiting curve" type option to the Studio Surface command, where one of the curves can be chosen to limit the surface generation. Kind of like what blend does with "shortest edge" or whatever the dialog there is.. or a U/V slider like Styled Sweep has. Would eliminate the creating of a lot of additional geometry, curve trimming, etc..

Remember the first Pentium, what a huge thing that was? All the Tiger Direct flyers laying around the office? Everyone buying their first PC? The "turbo" button. 😄 Being Gen-X is awesome... so much has changed, and we've all learned to embrace it. Albeit sometimes grudgingly. I remember my first job out of university ('95)... all the old drafting guys who had finally moved over to AutoCAD, grumbling and complaining... "Now they want us to learn this solid modeling crap?!". And... the owner firing a number of them for refusing to make the change. Good video.. sure brought back a lot of memories. I don't miss wireframe building... at all. 🙃

Informative

Super awesome, thank you.

Fantastic! thank you! looking forward to the history lesson on Class-A and reasons we might be able to deviate from them rules now days.

Looking forward to the rest of the icem videos!

Superb explanations as always. And I also request topics regarding the newly available standalone ICEM Surf learning edition by 3ds, it is now more accessible than top packages such as nx and 3dx catia, but no less powerful, except the limited exporting funcitons

I've used ICEM Shape Morph on and off for a few years now, but have only just started learning IDX recently. For sculpting IDX seems so much easier to use, once you get used to the interface changes. What do you think?

The world of Dassault always requires another license. The one that always gets me as a mainly GSD, Part design, Assembly etc user is you needed specific license in V5 to cut a section in an assembly and for it to persist after clicking ok you need another license. Obviously this depended on who you were working for if they paid for said license very frustrating. I've used 3Dexperience but with OEM licenses available so never got in the weeds on it. I'm not really sure if Siemens play similar games (used it for 3 years now) of course they will charge you for HVAC design /ship design etc but I'm not sure if they break up core modelling tools like Dassault.

Please make a series on icem surf. I am starting to learn that

Thank you "class A surfacing". I am not in this line of business but found it very informative.

Going to be mighty interesting, only seen one thing made in ICEM, the rest has been Alias unfortunally

Finally, someone explains this! Have wondered about out the icem stuff for a while

Very interesting. By the way, still very much enjoying your videos. I think they're valuable, and I think you present very well.

Thanks for your efforts ❤ Could you please make a video to show us how to make a plastic injection mold on Catia V6 ?

We need it more and more Steve. There is no end to learning.🙂 I propose you take very complicated geometry / shape and generate completely in NX 🙂

nice video... just one last step, surface is not symmtrical (@YX plane), basic design principle is to use symmetry reference as the 1st reference as it is basic design curve (intent to be modified later on). Just a tip: A) extrude curve on the symmetry plane in -X to get a flat surface B) offset symmetry plane in in +X by some lenght (depending on scale) C) for parametric surface use split ... for Aclass use break function - your created surface with symmetry plane D) blend edges with G1,G2 or G3 (depending on the surface class output that you want to get) I wont go into details about curve(s) creation conversion, but try using a 4 sided patch insted, to do the create a same surface ... result will be much better/cleaner and then you can edit with control points function and simplify (reduce) to get a better distribution. Just watch out not to over simplify and loose flush with the your referential surfaces. Keep up the good work, cheers!

Could you show the process of constructing the primary surfaces of the Mandalorian helmet? I'm interested in what are some ways to build hemispherical surfaces.

I love how your videos pull back the curtain on all these surface modeling tools. Of course, the downside is that I become more aware of how precariously close to disaster all of the models I've built as an idiot student are.

Hi Steve, nice "Clash of the Titans" video! I’ve used both tools, and while both are great, Catia ultimately became my personal choice, we just fell in love and we are still together. With NX Mach3, you get what you get, but with Catia, you have the ability to add more various funcionalities (example ICD and IAD are similar but more tailord to different industries), so lets leave marketing strategies of of conversatin. It seems you are referring to Catia ICEM, but if we're talking about 3DX (not V5-6), it's the ICEM Automotive Experience App you mean. You don’t need to have Catia ICEM lic for certain operations; you only need the correct app/role (ask DS for details on how they’re bundled). As you mentioned, you have three different blends (GSD blend, Freestyle blend, and Catia ICEM blend). As example, if you have ICEM for Aerospace, you'll have access to the Loft function. So big difference is how software is devepoed through years. Are you focusing on creating engineering surfaces or design surfaces? I can see you’re familiar with parametric surfaces, NURBS, etc. For A-Class / Design surfaces, ICEM or Alias (in the automotive sector) is typically the choice. NX can simulate this like Catia ICEM, but both miss some key vertex control features. It’s common to see one tool outperforming the other in one release and vice versa in the next; companies consistently research their competitors. Catia’s math behind parametric surfaces tends to be more complex than NX’s. That is a double edged sword. Tolerancing is crucial when exporting or importing data. Industry standard will tell you to go below 0.003mm, without any the simplification/optimisation selected. To demonstrate this, using Rhino as an interface between the two tools is helpful. Lastly, and most importantly, both tools are more than capable in the hands of a skilled professional, and the results are often very similar.

I would Looooove an explanation of the approximation tab in Catia ICEM! Dassaults courses and explanations does not help alot.

great video, I'm curious if you drew this in NX with the same paramters would the surfaces be the same? or do different cad packages do fitting different?

This comes up a LOT; 3 sided bulb-shape surfaces. This method makes them a lot easier to deal with. Nice work.

How are u rotating the Model so smoothly?

Nx version??

like comebt bellow say, there is option on. modeling preferences, that you can check this on. so it creat planes instead facet. also if you want to export convergent and solids or sheet togeter all in one time you most use parasolid bynary. x_b step format dont support tri/ polyons object🤗

Take a look at Modeling Preferences. I believe there is possibly a setting in there related to the resulting Convergent body from the 1 degree spline. Going from memory here, so not 100% sure if that’s the culprit.

Insert... Twilight Zone theme. 😄

Please talk about count of spans and degree like in Alias. How to control, what about count of spans? Thanks!

Great stuff!

Hi Steve, Hope you are well. This looks familiar :-) You've don a lot of excellent videos. Don V.

I have been looking for the best method to make wingtips in airplanes and this is by far the best one I have ever seen. Can't thank you enough!

Thanks from Brazil! 🇧🇷

what about open flange data?🙄

Thanks I learn a lot here. Btw, this technique is also useful to create an apple magic mouse bottom part. 👍

Amazing sir

So weldon sir

Thank you. Very interesting! I did some testing, and found that in the special case where my arcs are one quarter of a circle, the resulting surface is very simple. Using preserve shape and lofting degree 1, you will get only six nodes, three for each arc. Furthermore, it seems like the surface match the arcs perfectly. What is happening here? And why is lofting degree affecting the surface, even when we have only two sections?

I went and did almost this exact thing in CATIA after your NX video. I also noticed that the dress-up didn't do anything on the canonic cylinder that was produced with the multi-section surface. Does CATIA handle surfaces and curves differently when they can be recognized as canonic geometry?

Not entierly sure if I understand what you mean by "true circles". Alias can build with rationals which use weighted cv's to make perfectly round circles. However. All manufacturers I've encountered prohibit the use of rationals in alias because surfaces will inherit the weighting which will makes alignment work near impossible.

AKA "Degenerate surface"

Hi! Isn’t the parabola simpliest NURBS curve? General conic has slightly more complex equation in my opinion… with different rho parameters general conic can be parabola/hyperbola/ellips/arc. The problem about representation of the NURBS is the polynomial form, while arc is like y=sqrt(r^2-x^2). Anyway good video ;)

super interesting, thanks!

Great video, thanks. I'm of course interested in other methods as well :)

Why you create a lot of spans on small surfaces? Isn't it necessary to reduce them on such surfaces?

good job

So how is this going to effect my surface created with Through curves if I used different options Continuity: G0,G1 or G2?

In my software when i try to offset, mirror it shows "no persistent relation will be created". Can you fix this

Is there any tutorial tips & tricks to use splines?

Is it right if I say: Through Curve Mesh is less flexible, I mean it is more strict compare to the Studio Surface but it'll generate surface that you want, vice versa in Studio Surface is is more flexible but it can generate more complex surface if you not careful. Btw, I want to ask about equivalent tools/feature from Solidworks to NX. 1. Pierce constraint in SW, what's the equivalent in NX? Now I use intersection point first for reference. 2. Loft, this one I can achieve with through curve or studio surface and bridge surface. I mean if I didn't need guide curve, just 2/more section/primary curve. Is it right? Thanks