Page 307 - Mastering SolidWorks

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Selecting a SPecialty Feature 279

It is possible to use Indent in mold applications; however, most mold designers will prefer to
use the shrink percentage that you can get with the Scale/Cavity/Boolean operations rather than
the discreet offset that Indent provides.
Using Intersect
Intersect combines the functionality of general solids Boolean operations, Trim Surface, Knit
Surface, Split, Replace Face, and Cut With Surface. The tool does not appear to have any exclu-
sive functionality, but it reduces the work to complete some tasks that used to take many steps
with a combination of different tools. It is useful for determining the volume of “open” cavities.
For example, the part file shown in Figure 8.17 is a multibody with solids and surfaces. The small
part in the center is a knob. The big block around it is a mold block, currently a single piece. The
four cylinders are surfaces representing alignment pins, and the cylinder in the center is an
ejector sleeve. The Top plane goes through the center and represents the parting line of the
mold. You can find this part file in the download material for Chapter 8 under the filename
Chapter 8 - Intersect Example.sldprt.

Figure 8.17
creating a mold from
representative solids and
surfaces using intersect:
starting point

The first step is to select all the entities involved. This is much like the Mutual Trim feature. In
the Selections panel of the Intersect PropertyManager, select every solid, surface, and plane that
will take part in the operation.
You have the option to cap open surfaces while doing this, but this example does not require
it. If one of the holes was a blind hole, but the surface body was open inside the solid, that
situation would require a capped surface.
In this example, the only thing about the feature that is not very elegant is that the Merge
result is not selective. Perhaps you can think of it as being the split function that is not selective.
Notice that the final feature in the tree is a Combine. This was necessary because the original part
was split into pieces. You may argue that the original part should be consumed—in which case,
I wouldn’t have allowed the pieces to remain—but this kind of decision should be up to the
individual user, not the programmer.
The Consume Surfaces option simply removes any surface bodies used in the operation.