About Separation in Solid Models

When you receive a solid model from a customer, we recommend that you compute the parting lines (outer and inner) with the command Parting Line by Color : under certain conditions, Parting Line by Color produces parting lines you can reuse automatically and directly to split the solid in one or several surfaces (because the various loops of the result parting line have the right number and the right orientation).

Before creating parting lines by color, you need to color the faces of the solid according to the desired separation:

• For simple models, use the command Face Color Editor . In particular, you can often color the cavity side in one step, using the Tangent Continuity
• propagation option. In some other cases, you can easily identify and color a parting belt of faces.
• For more complex models, use Quick Dispatch in the Main Pulling Direction command to create automatically two connex colored areas on the solid.

In this case, we recommended that:

• you validate automatically the result of the quick dispatch,
• create the associated parting lines,
• validate by inspection that they are conform to your intent. If a parting line does not exactly correspond to your intent:
  • rectify the color of the neighboring faces with the Face Color Editor ,
  • delete the current parting line (which no longer corresponds to the color) and compute a new one.

The parting line obtained this way is associative to the solid model. But if some of the solid faces have their color modified afterwards, you may need to recompute the parting line.

Once the parting line has been validated, you can change the color of the faces of the model for other purposes, without consequences on the parting line.