About the Solidify Feature
Solidify features use predetermined surface features or quilt geometry and convert them into solid geometry. You can use Solidify features to add, remove, or replace solid material in your designs. The quilt geometry provides you with greater flexibility within your design, and the Solidify feature enables you to transform that geometry to meet your design needs.
Typically, Solidify features are used to create complex geometry that would be more difficult, if not impossible, to create using regular solid features.
Designing Solidify features requires you to:
• Select a surface feature or quilt as a reference
• Determine how you want to use the reference geometry: add solid material, remove solid material, or patch a surface
• Define the material direction for the geometry
Enter the Solidify tool by clicking
Model >
Solidify.
To enter the Solidify tool, you must have a surface feature or quilt selected. Only valid geometry can be selected before entering the Solidify tool. As you enter the tool your surface feature or quilt selection is automatically placed in the collector. While the tool is active you can select a new reference. The reference collector only accepts one valid surface feature or quilt reference at a time.
After you specify a valid surface feature or quilt for the Solidify feature, if the resulting geometry is possible, preview geometry is displayed in the graphics window. You can modify attributes for the Solidify feature by using shortcut menus directly in the graphics window, the
Solidify tab, or a combination of the two. You can also directly control the material direction using the direction arrow. The preview geometry automatically updates, reflecting any modifications.
The following Solidify feature types are available:
Type | Surface or Quilt | Solidify |
 Protrusion Add solid material using the surface feature or quilt geometry as the boundary. (Always available.) | | |
 Cut Remove solid material using the surface feature or quilt geometry as the boundary. (Always available.) | | |
 Patch Replace a specified portion of a surface using surface feature or quilt geometry. (Only available if the selected surface or quilt boundaries lie on solid geometry.) | | |
Solidify features are subject to normal feature operations, including patterning, modifying, editing references, and redefining.
| • If model changes cause the selected surface feature or quilt to become invalid, the Solidify feature fails during regeneration of model. • While in Assembly mode you can only create solidify features that remove material. |
