Stitch Surfaces

Use the Stitch Surfaces tool to stitch or unstitch adjacent and intersecting surfaces.

  1. From the Geometry ribbon, Stitch tool group, click the Stitch Surfaces tool.
    Figure 1.


  2. Optional: On the guide bar, click to define stitch options.

    Stitch methods include:

    Stitch and intersect
    Finds intersections between overlapping surfaces, creates trimming lines at the intersections, and equivalences the resulting surface edges.
    Stitch edges only
    Performs equivalencing of edges within surfaces or/and between surfaces. Further options like stitch free edges or stitch edges between components or across components are available to control stitching between edges.
    Use Parasolid for CAD
    Use Parasolid kernel to stitch edges. This option works on free edges only and not on non-manifold or T junctions. In addition, only surface selection is supported – clicking and dragging edges or points has no effect. This option is useful for locally merging edges that are less than 10 times the geometry cleanup tolerance.
    Note: "Optimize CAD surface quality" and "Use Parasolid for CAD" are not supported for FE geometry.
  3. Stitch or unstitch surfaces in the following ways:
    • Select surfaces to stitch in the modeling window then click Stitch on the guide bar.
    • Repair geometry by replacing edges and points.
      • Click-and-drag an edge to another edge, or click-and-drag a point to another point.
      • Select the point(s) to move, then click one of the selected points that you wish to retain and combine with the other selected points.
    • Left-click on a surface edge to advance its topology state from free to shared. Conversely, hold Shift while left-clicking to regress its topology state from shared to free.
Tip:
  • Use window selection to select multiple surfaces, and simultaneously stitch adjacent surfaces and intersecting surfaces. Adjust individual edges if needed.
  • Use the legend in the upper-left corner of the modeling window to assist you in finding edges. Edges are color coded by type. Show and hide an edge type by toggling its corresponding checkbox on and off, or quickly isolate an edge type by clicking Only.

Stitch Surfaces Using the Context Menu

Quickly stitch without opening the Stitch Surfaces tool.

  1. Navigate to the Geometry ribbon.
  2. While in idle mode, select the surfaces to stitch.
  3. Right-click in the modeling window and select Edit > <stitching option> from the context menu.
    • Stitch Surfaces - This has the same effect as using the Stitch Surfaces tool with the Stitch edges only method.
    • Intersect Surfaces - This has the same effect as using the Stitch Surfaces tool with the Stitch and intersect method.
  4. For Stitch Surfaces, enter a cleanup tolerance value in the dialog and then click OK.
    Any adjacent surfaces with a distance less than the specified value are stitched.