Integrate digitized clay model data with modeled surfaces

In a typical clay prototyping workflow, you might follow these steps:

Create a model in Alias.
Mill a clay model from the Alias data.
Reshape the clay model by hand.
Digitize the reshaped parts of the clay model.
Integrate the changes back into the Alias surfaces with the Surface Edit > Claymate tool.

How It Works

The Claymate tool works by asking you to select:

surfaces to modify (corresponding to the changed data),
modifier curves or surfaces (the digitized, reshaped data), and
reference surfaces (surfaces that have not changed).

It then uses the modifier curves/surfaces to reshape the original surfaces, while maintaining positional and tangent continuity with the reference surfaces.

Tip

To streamline the use of the Claymate tool, you may want to put the surfaces to modify, the modifier curves/surfaces, and the reference surfaces in different layers.

More Uses

You can also use Claymate in other situations that require you to fit surfaces back to modified curves or surfaces. For example:

Create cross-section profile curves from a surface model.
Modify the curves.
Use the Claymate tool to fit the original surfaces to the new profile curves.

To use digitized changed data to reshape surfaces on a model

Pick the surfaces that were changed on the clay version.
Click the Claymate icon , or choose Surface Edit > Claymate from the palette.
The Claymate Control window appears.

Note
If any of the picked objects are invalid for use with Claymate, the Claymate tool unpicks everything.
Pick any other surfaces that need to be updated, then click Go.
Pick the curves or surfaces that were digitized from the changed sections of the clay model (the modifier curves).
Modifier curves/surfaces that are outside the Min/Max Mod. Distance range are ignored.
Click Go.
Pick all the surfaces on the model that were not changed on the clay version (the reference surfaces) and with which you want the modified surfaces to maintain positional and tangent continuity.
The Claymate tool will maintain continuity with these reference surfaces as it modifies the changed surfaces.
Click Go.
Claymate uses the settings in the Claymate Control window to reshape the surfaces of the model to match the modification curves.

Note
Usually you will want the Auto Recalculate option on to see the effects of changing options interactively. If the surfaces involved are very complex, however, updates may take a long time. Turn Auto Recalculate off and use the Recalculate button at the bottom of the window.
Tip
Increasing the number of samples allows finer control over the surfaces, but greatly increases the time required to perform the operation. Calculation time increases linearly with the number of samples on the modifier curves, and with the square of the number of samples on the target surface.