ModifyGlobal Shape ModelingAdvanced

The Advanced GSM command — also known as Global Shape Modeling (GSM) — enables you to modify the shape of entire objects composed of solids, surfaces, curves, points and meshes (see also "Display information about a selected Mesh" for further details on mesh entities).

In case a situation of incompatibility is detected while selecting a curve chain (both in the case of initial and of target curves), an appropriate warning is displayed.

To the selected set of entities to be modified you can apply (see details on the user interface in "The Advanced GSM Command User Interface"):

• A set of preserving conditions: points, curves, surface contours or even highlight lines to be preserved from the controlled modification in terms of position, tangency, curvature and so on.
• A set of matching conditions. In fact, you may want to modify the initial shape so that some entities belonging to it — points, curves or surface boundaries — after the modification, match some target entities of the same type by fulfilling conditions like position, tangency, curvature and so on.
• A set of through conditions which can change the shape so that after the modification it is through some entities which can be curves, points or even highlight lines, sections obtained through the Free Hand command or silhouettes (for details, see "Modifying a shape so as to constrain it to be through some other entities").
• A set of target shape conditions which can match selected curves/points with line, plane, sphere or cylinder. Click here for details.

Conditions cover position, tangency and curvature continuity, and also linear and planar properties. They can be defined along curves (contours), or on points (which can also be read on ASCII files: for details see "Reading point constraints from an ASCII file"). A specific option is provided for the situations in which you may need to modify a solid while keeping the projection onto a certain plane unchanged.

While a preview on demand is provided for general matchings, position matching on points can also be defined in an interactive way.

A set of options is provided to manage the shape of the controlled modification, defining parameters like stiffness, roundness and bulging. Another set of options is provided to manage the precision of the resulting entities.

Restoring selections after an interruption If you interrupt the Advanced GSM command, your selections and settings are not lost: they are "frozen" in order to enable you to use them again without having to repeat them all, which might take a long time, at least in complex situations. Next time you start the Advanced GSM command, in fact, the Restore Selection button ( ) will be displayed on top of the selection list. If you select the Restore Selection button ( ), all the selections you made and the settings you defined last time you used the command will be restored, enabling you to go on with no need to repeat those selections/settings. When the command is started with some pre-selected entities, if you click the Restore Selection button you will be asked to confirm restoring the frozen command selections, thus resetting the current selection. For further details see "Restore Selection modality for selections and settings".

A set of Quality Checks commands is also available.

See The Advanced GSM Command User Interface for an overview on the command interface. See also Understanding GSM and GSM Tips for further details.

Try to ...

• Apply a controlled modification to a simple shape
• Apply a controlled modification to a shape using Virtual Vertices
• Apply a controlled modification to a simple solid
• Apply a controlled modification to a symmetric model
• Apply a through highlights modification
• Constrain a surface through a curve
• Constrain a surface through a set of points
• Check your results
• Get NURBS surfaces instead of specialized ones
• Perform Quality Checks

  e-Learning on Global Modeling