Gauss Curvature?

[nimeshthakrar]

Hi,



I'm modelling quite a large component using a swept blend. The part is going to be milled out on a 3-axis machine and it has to look good! The surface analysis tool features a gauss curvature tool. I've had a go at it and lots of pretty colours come out - but how do I interpret these contour plots?



Thanks for your help.

 

[miked]

What version of pro are you using?

Mike

 

[nimeshthakrar]

I'm using 2001 Student Ed.

 

[mgnt8]

This link explains Gauss Curvature:



http://www.ptc.com/cs/tpi/119680.htm

 

[nimeshthakrar]

I'm sure the link is informative but unfortunately I don't have a ptc username and password...any other way I can get that info??

 

[dr_gallup]

At any given point on a surface a tangent plane can be constructed. In that tangent plane there is a direction of maximum curvature and another direction of minimum curvature. These are sometimes called the normal or principal curvatures. Gauss curvature is the product of the principal curvatures. Maximum curvature ignores the minimum curvature and reports only the maximum curvature.



For example, the Gauss curvature for a cylinder is zero, since the minimum curvature is always zero in the axial direction. In contrast, the maximum curvature surface analysis would be a constant non-zero value. In general, concave surfaces report positive curvature values, and convex surfaces report negative curvature values.

 

[nimeshthakrar]

OK thanks dr_gallup