- [Instructor] From the downloaded exercise files
go ahead and open the SheetMetal_Bracket_Step_1.
Once you get that open,
you're going to see this final Split 1 surface.
And I want to use this to show you
how the offset operator works.
Select an offset
and pretty straightforward,
what's the surface you want to offset
and what's the distance you want to offset?
I'll just type in three,
select my surface,
you'll notice I get a vector direction.
That's the correct direction,
just go ahead and hit preview
and you'll notice that it off sets that surface.
The nice thing about the offset
is this will show a deformation along edges,
so if you're trying to mimic a sheet metal part,
this will show sort of that deformation
if it's going around a bend
and it's being twisted,
the surface is going to basically mimic that.
It'll be pretty close to a real-world example.
So, here I have offset to three millimeters.
Now, I if drag this out
eventually what's going to happen
are some of the faces are going to disappear
and the system is pretty smart in some cases.
This is a pretty straightforward case,
so those faces have just randomly disappeared,
system's able to calculate.
If you're dealing with a highly complex shape,
every once in a while
the system's unable to actually produce
the offset, so you end up with elements
that will be removed
and CATIA will determine what those elements are
and you can just go in there and verify.
In some cases which has affected me greatly in the past
is I want to offset a surface,
I get some failures
but those failures are in an area
of the surface that I'm not working in
or no longer need
and it doesn't necessarily affect me.
So, just as a user hint or user tip,
verify where those elements are,
you still may be able to use that surface.
If you do need those areas,
you have smoothing options,
so you can just go to automatic
and what this will,
Preview, in this case you're not going to see much of a change
but in this case, with the automatics moving,
it may deviate up to a 10th of a millimeter
and in a lot of cases if you're working
with a large body panel or B side,
something that's not critical for visualization purposes,
that's a perfectly acceptable result.