The Surface Repair Workflow

Use the Surface Repair tool to identify and manually repair surface and part curve errors on the discretized geometry.

The Surface Repair tool also contains a powerful search tool that allows you to organize the discretized surface.

To use the surface repair tool:

Launch the Surface Repair tool using one of the following options:
- From the Mesh Generation toolbar, click (Launch Surface Repair).
- Right-click a geometry part, a part description, or a surface representation and select Repair Surface...
- Right-click a mesh operation and select Repair Input Surface.... This option is available for all mesh operations except for Replace Part.
If you have geometry parts, but no region surface representations, the tool automatically launches with the geometry parts available for repair. If you have one representation, but no geometry parts, the tool automatically launches with the representation available for repair. In all other cases, choose either Repair Part(s)... or Repair Region(s) from the pop-up menu.
In the Surface Repair Options dialog, if the parts you want to repair are not already chosen, then proceed to choose them as follows:
1. To choose parts directly, set Part Source to Description, set Geometry Description to the category from which you want the parts to come, and click Select to open the parts selector.
2. To choose parts that are being used as inputs for an operation, set Part Source to Mesh Operation and select the target operation from Mesh Operation. If you wish, you can refine the selection using the Select button.
3. After making any selections in the part selector, click OK.
The Surface Repair environment appears. See Surface Repair User Interface.

When you launch the Surface Repair tool, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ does a topological orientation on the faces you selected. That is, it makes sure that all the faces are consistently oriented in the same direction, whether pointing inwards or outwards. Simcenter STAR-CCM+ picks the orientation belonging to the largest number of faces and orients them all in that direction.

Note	If you want to perform any operation using the simulation tree, you should exit the Surface Repair Tool. Do not use the Replace Part operation on the active part while the surface repair session is open.

If you want to create new part surfaces from a subset of faces, you can use the classify features of the surface repair tool. See Classifying Surfaces.
If you want to reassign surfaces or edges into new or existing part surfaces or part curves, you can use the organization features of the Surface Repair tool. You can use the search functionality of the Surface Repair tool to search for specific features and attributes on the tessellated surfaces, and group related part surfaces together. See Organizing Discretized Geometry.

Identify and repair errors in the tessellated geometry. Errors in the surfaces and part curves can lead to meshing issues downstream. If you are having problems meshing the geometry, you are advised to run the surface and part curve diagnostics. See Repairing Surfaces and Repairing Features.

Look at the identified problem areas.
A problem area is a collection of diagnostics that are connected to each other by one or more shared vertices. Faces, edges, or vertices can be identified in more than one diagnostic check. Each face, edge, or vertex is only displayed in the problem area collection that belongs to the last diagnostic check to identify it.
- Click on the individual colored boxes to highlight all errors of that type. Hold the <Ctrl> key to select multiple boxes.
- Use the (Browse) buttons to cycle through individual errors, one at a time.
  The scene zooms in to focus on the specific errors as you cycle through.
Note If you modify the surface, the diagnostics and problem areas are automatically updated.

If more than 100 problem areas are identified, merges between two or more problem areas that were previously unconnected are no longer performed.
Manage how the errors are displayed in the Graphics window:
- Use the display controls to control how the geometry is displayed in the Graphics window. See Display Control Tools.
- The Reset View option resets the view to zoom in on the displayed faces, edges, and vertices. Deactivate the Reset View option to maintain the same view.
- The Reset Displayed option resets the displayed faces, edges, and vertices to the error and two neighbors. Deactivate the Reset Displayed option to display the same entities.
Use the selection controls to select the entities you want to repair. See Entity Selection.
- Smart selection (double-click) allows you to grow the selection automatically until a natural break is reached. Applies to both individual and patch-based selections. You can control which break points apply during the smart selection by activating or deactivating options in the Repair User Settings dialog. To open this dialog, click the (Repair User Settings) button at the bottom of the Surface Repair tool. See Repair User Settings Reference. By default, all break options are activated with a default sharp angle of 45 deg.
Smart selection (double-clicking a face or edge that contains a diagnostic result) of what appears to be continuous problem areas no longer produces the expected selection result. Smart selections are limited to the portions of the problem area that they belong to, even though visually they appear to be connected together.

The following message is displayed in the Output window:

Warning: Too many problem areas in surface, will not attempt to merge neighboring areas.

To resolve this issue:
- Decrease the number of diagnostics that are activated. This action reduces the potential number of problem areas.
- Enter the Manage Thresholds panel and click OK to exit. The problem areas automatically recalculate. Smart selection results are then as expected, regardless of the number of problem areas.

Fix errors using the appropriate tools. See Repair Tools Reference.

The tools do not allow you to create new vertices directly. If you want to fill many holes or zip many edges, use the hole filler and edge zipper tools respectively. For other cases, use the surface repair workflow to identify and repair issues.

Note

You can create coordinate systems without closing the Surface Repair tool. To create a coordinate system, switch to the Simulation tab to access the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ object tree and create the coordinate system under the Tools > Coordinate System node. Coordinate systems that you create while the Surface Repair session is active are automatically available in tools that use a coordinate system selection. See Coordinate Systems.

If you will be wrapping your geometry, perform a leak detection. When wrapping a complex geometry, you are advised to run a leak detection and fill any gaps/holes that do not form part of the geometry. Doing so will make sure that you get a closed/sealed geometry after running the wrapper. See Leak Detection.
Merge or Imprint discretized surfaces together. Imprinting surfaces on a tessellated surface together allows you to generate a conformal mesh between the part. See Merge and Imprint Mode. For CAD geometry, you are advised to imprint surfaces using the Boolean operations in 3D-CAD or at the parts level.
If necessary, use the (Undo) and (Redo) functions to undo and redo actions.
For example, if you deleted a face by mistake, click (Undo) to restore the deleted face and returns the part to its previous state. A complete history of all operations in the current surface preparation session is available. The history is deleted when you close the dialog.
Click Close to exit the Surface Repair tool.