About Creation Methods and Cross Section Shapes
You can refine round geometry with specific creation methods and cross section shapes.
Creation Methods
• Rolling Ball—An imaginary spherical ball is rolled along the surfaces to which it would naturally stay tangent. This is the default.
• Normal to spine—An arc or conic cross section is swept along the edges normal to a selected spine. This option is not available for Full rounds.
Cross Section Shapes
There are three categories of round cross section: circular, conic, and curvature continuous. Use a circular profile to create a simple round with a circular cross section, or use a conic profile to create a round with a conic cross section. The curvature continuous cross section can be fine-tuned like a conic, but curvature continuity is maintained with the adjacent surfaces to improve the aesthetic quality of the geometry. For two adjacent round surfaces belonging to the same round set to be curvature continuous to each other, the surfaces that they round must be curvature continuous to each other. If the surfaces are tangent, the corresponding surfaces on the C2 Continuous round or the D1×D2 C2 round are tangent to each other but not curvature continuous.
• Circular—Defines a radius or chord.
• Conic—Defines the sharpness of the conical shape with a conic parameter from 0.05 to 0.95. Toggle between D1 x D2 Conic and Conic on the Sets tab, or right-click and choose or deselect Independent from the shortcut menu.
◦ Conic—Uses an equal leg length. Each leg automatically updates when the other is modified. This option is available for Constant and Variable round sets.
◦ D1 x D2 Conic—Uses independent leg lengths. Click
to flip the leg lengths. This option is available only for Constant round sets.
• C2 Continuous—Defines the spline shape with a C2 Shape Factor from 0 to 0.95, and sets a conic length. The effect of the C2 shape factor on the shape of the spline is analogous to that of the rho factor on a conic arc. This option is available for Constant round sets.
• D1 x D2 C2—Defines the spline shape with the C2 shape factor. D1×D2 C2 rounds with equal leg lengths is available only for Constant round sets.