Alias Design For Inventor – Part 4

<< Part 3

In Part 3 this series I explained why it is important to insert a free form feature at the correct location in the feature tree. In this part lets see what happens when the underlying geometry supporting a free form feature is modified. Let’s continue with the simple two box example. I apply a free form feature to the small box by deforming two of its edges.

Next I apply fillets to the deformed edges.

As you can image the highlighted fillet is a bad idea. So the question is whether I now need to remove the fillet to get back the edge, then edit the edge to make it not that bad an idea and then reapply the fillet once again. The answer is no. I simply edit the free form feature and tweak the problem edge.

Although the concerned edge was replaced by a fillet downstream it was available to me when I went to edit the free form feature. In history based parametric modeling this is nothing new. The free form feature is just like any other feature in Inventor.