Note: Before using this tool, please read the “Getting Started Guide” for the intended usage of this function in the proper context. 

 

After selecting a part(s) or a collection of surfaces with the Single or Window Select Tool, click the Lite Repair Tool to perform Lite Repair on the selected entities. Refer to the output window for repair results.

 

Lite Repair performs the following functions on a part:

 

1) Repair Initialization.  Examines the part and attaches intelligent attributes that are used to establish tolerances for stitching, simplification and Repair.

 

2) Repair Pre-processing.  Find and remove zero-length edges, zero-area faces, and duplicate vertices.  These are common, extraneous, & unnecessary geometry.

 

3) Geometric Simplification. The intelligent attributes established in Repair Initialization are analyzed for the purposes of Geometric Simplification.  Geometric Simplification attempts to simplify spline surfaces into analytic surfaces (planes, cylinders, cones, tori, and spheres). 

 

4) Geometric Stitching. The intelligent attributes established in Repair Initialization are analyzed for the purposes of Geometric Stitching.  Geometric Stitching attempts to "pair up" edges of free faces and stitch them together.  No stitching is performed if two faces are farther away than the minimum tolerance established in Step 1, meaning, they are presumed to be free floating surfaces.

 

5) Repair Post-processing.  After Geometric Simplification, Geometric Stitching, and Geometric Creation and Repair, there are often artifacts left over from the operations that can affect the fidelity of the translation.  These artifacts can be zero-length edges, zero-area faces, negative area faces, duplicate vertices, or duplicate edges.  All of these artifacts are again analyzed and removed during this phase.  Finally, "tolerant attributes" are placed on gaps in the model that could not be Repaired.  There are several reasons for a gap not being able to be properly Repaired such surface domains that could not be extended, surface domain boundaries that are coincident with trimming curve boundaries, varying speed tangent normal's at surfaces boundaries (can't be extended because they would result in a surface self-intersection).  Gaps that can not be fully "closed" to within TransMagic's extremely high 10e-6 mm, are given a tolerance that indicate that the gap is still closed, though not accurate to 10e-6.  These gaps can be seen by Selecting the model and then selecting the Show Gaps Tool .  It's important to note; however, that what TransMagic perceives as a gap, the receiving application may deem to be more than accurate enough based on it's own tolerances.  For this reason it should be noted that the "gaps" in a model are only a measure relative to TransMagic only that help to illustrate what corrections have been made.

 

6) Geometric Cleaning.  After Repair Post-processing, the part is again analyzed for unnecessary faces, edges, vertices, and associated data.  These unnecessary geometries are then removed. 

 

7) Repair Termination.  All intelligent attributes created during Repair Initialization are removed.

 

Note: If your surface model or assembly contains colors, a more advanced and quite often more successful technique of isolating surfaces to stitch into individual solids is to use the  Set Color Tool in conjunction with the  Window Select By Color Tool.  With these tools you can select surfaces of only a certain color and stitch them into a solid using Lite Repair.  See the "Surface Assembly Repair Using Colors" in the "Tutorials" section.

Note: TransMagic will notify you of un-stitched edges with a dialog box.  These edges can be either "holes" in the part or simply surfaces floating in space, such as construction geometry, that do not belong to a solid.  When you are done viewing these open edges you should refresh the display with Ctrl+R before proceeding.  You can always show open edges again by selecting the part and clicking the  Show Missing Surfaces icon.  If your part has "holes" that you need to cover see the "Advanced Manual Repair" tutorial in the "Tutorials" section.

Note: TransMagic will also attempt to notify you of duplicate surfaces by higlighting them in White and adding the letter "D" in the center of the surface.  These are sometimes more clearly visible when viewed in  wire-frame rendering as the duplicate surfaces will remain shaded white while the rest of the model is in wire-frame rendering.  In most cases duplicate surfaces are not necessary and can be deleting by selecting them (hold Ctrl to select more than one) and deleting them (use the "delete" key on your keyboard).

Note: One of the phases of Lite Repair is to orient surfaces so that they are all "facing out".  In rare cases, instead of orienting all of the faces outward, Lite Repair will orient the faces inward resulting in a "negative" looking model in your application.  You can easily correct this by bringing the model back into TransMagic  Single Selecting or  Window Selecting the model and then clicking the  Reverse Faces Tool. 

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