Creating Styling Corners

This task explains how to create a styling corner, that is a connecting curve of a given radius between two other planar curves.
Styling corners are especially useful to create good quality surfaces based on a curve net, as described in Creating a Net Surface (available with the FreeStyle Profiler product only).

Open the FreeStyle_Part_19.CATPart document.

  1. Click the Styling Corner icon .
    The Styling Corner dialog box is displayed.

  2. Select the two curves to be connected by a styling corner.

  3. Key in a radius value.
 

You can create a styling corner by setting the values for the radius parameters.
To set the step value for the radius parameters:
  1. Right-click the box and select Change step.
  2. Select the value.
    You can enter a new step value in the New step dialog box by selecting new one.
    1. Right-click the box and select Change step > new one.
      The new step dialog box appears.
    2. In the box, type a new step value.
    3. Click OK.

To calculate minimum distance between geometrical entities (Measure Between) and calculate property of any geometrical entity (Measure Item):

  1. Right-click the box and select Measure Between.
    OR
  2. Right-click the box and select Measure Item.

To set the range value for the radius parameters:

  1. Right-click the box and select Range > Edit.

    The Range definition dialog box appears.
  2. In the Inf. Range box, type a value.
  3. In the Sup. Range box, type a value.
  4. Click OK.
 

To add range values perform the following actions:
  1. Right-click the box and select Range > Suppress.
  2. Right-click Number of Stripes box and select Add Range….

    The Range definition dialog box appears.
 
  1. Select the Inf. Range check box and Sup. Range check box.
  2. Enter the range values and click OK.
  The default Range, Step and Value of the Radius scroll bar in Styling Corner command are as follows:
Scroll Bar Name Range Step Value
Radius Scroll Bar 0.1 mm to 1000 mm 0.1 mm 20 mm

  1. Click Apply.

The corner is previewed, with manipulators, at the circle center, the constant radius limit (the segment between the two solid radius lines), and at the contact points, provided this option is active in the dashboard. 

 

Capabilities are available from the contextual menu when right-clicking a contact point.
It may be interesting to perform a curvature analysis clicking the Porcupine Curvature Analysis icon to visualize the resulting corner's curvature, and possibly modify it using the corner's manipulators.

In this case, it may be useful to smooth the curvature at the contact points and reduce the constant radius area:

  1. Modify the options as needed: 

  • the Radius value in the editable field
  • the Single Segment option to impose a limited number of control points for the corner curve, thus resulting in a single arc curve.
    In this case, the generative circle is not displayed, only contact points are, provided the Contact Points option is active in the dashboard.
    Depending on the radius value, there may be several solutions. In this case, you are prompted to select one of the proposed solutions.
The concatenation mode (see below) is not available with this mode.
 

  • the resulting curve type:
  1. Trim: to create a three-cell curve limited to the initial curves endpoints.
    You can display their control points independently if you use the Control Points icon (it creates another independent curve corresponding to the selected cell).
    Initial curves are duplicated and trimmed at the contact points with the corner segment.
 

  1. No Trim: to create the corner arc only limited at the intersection with the initial curves
    Initial curves are not modified.
 

  1. Concatenation: to create a mono-cell curve limited to the initial curves endpoints. You can display its control points independently if you use the Control Points icon (it creates another independent curve corresponding to the whole curve).
    Initial curves are duplicated, trimmed at the contact points with the corner segment, and concatenated with the latter. 
 

  1. Click OK to create the styling corner.
A useful application of this command is to create a set of styling corners based on intersecting curves, then create an associate net surface based on these styling corners. You can then modify the initial set of curves and the surface automatically is recomputed.