Designing on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform is a growing part of our lives, and the developers at Dassault Systemes are doing their very best to make sure that the features and functions that we like in desktop SOLIDWORKS are available to us through xDesign. Let’s take a look at how xDesign is able to match the capabilities of desktop SOLIDWORKS by comparing the variable radius fillet and flip mate.
Variable Radius Fillet
The first one I’d like to cover is the variable radius fillet. Just like in desktop SOLIDWORKS, if we want to create a variable radius fillet, we simply go to the fillet command, which is one of the three options. As in the desktop SOLIDWORKS version, if we want to apply a fillet, we can do this by selecting an edge and providing it with markers at the beginning and the end of that edge. These labels also allow us to input the values. If I want to start off with a five-millimeter radius and have that sweep down to a 30-millimeter radius, it’s easy to do that. You’ll notice it gives us a nice preview so that we see exactly what we’re going to get beforehand.
We can complete that command and you see that we get a nice curved radius. But what happens if we want to extend it an additional five millimeters further along that edge? Well, we can add a variance point and tell xDesign where we want to put that point or how far out we want to hold that edge, or even what we want that radius to be at that point on the edge.
Flip Mate Comparison
What we’ll look at now is the option to flip our mates. In this example, we need to assemble the yoke to the bracket. As I click on my paperclip and try to select my faces, you’ll notice when I add the bracket, it prepositions and orients it in the most convenient way to satisfy that coincident mate. But in this case, it doesn’t serve what I need to accomplish. I’m going to flip the orientation and by doing so, it will still satisfy that mate and apply the coincident mate from the other orientation. After adding that in, the last thing that I need to do is select the two cylindrical faces, and now I have a functional assembly
So just as in desktop SOLIDWORKS, if our components end up in a situation where we need to swap that orientation or flip that mate orientation xDesign certainly has the capability to do that on the fly.
