Shell command not intelligent enough

michael_kline

Would like to ask about the level of comprehension the shell tool has. Every time I go to use it it fails because of self intersection of walls, instead of just... not shelling those areas. This is already implemented in other cad programs.
I just want to make a cut away of one face up to a multi-faced end; a flat face and a simple, large curve. The other side (flat) needs shelled to a certain thickness for printing. The back end of the model, which is thinner and wraps around another object, does not need shelled. The problem is that because the shell command is trying to shell *everything* instead of stopping where it intersects, it fails every time.

What is the work around for this? Are there any plans to fix this tool?

Edit:
example:
draw a 1 inch cube with a 1/4 inch cube sticking out the side. shell any of the other 5 faces with a 3/8 thickness shell. the tool will fail because trying to shell inside the smaller extrusion obviously doesn't work.

S1mon

Maybe you can share a sample document. I'm not seeing the problem you're stating. I'm sure there are plenty of cases where shell fails when we'd like more intelligent work-arounds, but your verbal example isn't causing a failure for me.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/f0abb71a1f51e936fed2bbc0/w/87ea741388763d632f25ea68/e/5e078e6b024c277ba50f8291

michael_kline

my files are far more complicated, the example was my best guess on whats happening, and it matches the errors im getting of not being a valid shell. ill look for other isses with the shell tool thanks

the other consideration is how to get the tool to stop making cavities when the walls become too thin. i made some example parts and they work but now have internal cavities in other places

steve_shubin

@michael_kline



https://cad.onshape.com/documents/bb94ed06483ba07e19147285/w/1c8b83740963b04e653d5b00/e/f4d1089fa69b385723d3ee5d

One way — If you want certain portions of a part with a shell of 1 mm, and other portions of a part with a shell of 2 mm, then construct them as two separate parts and then do a boolean union after the shell operations

Another way — use the Variable Shell featurescript where within one operation, you can have different thicknesses

Here’s the link to the FS
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/4d9f5c25ff098328ee244a6d/v/ee926fc5be0bc0b3db85e3d9/e/8aea52e05df5008ef313749c