Merge And Imprint Options

The following tables summarize the properties available for the Merge/Imprint tool.

Table 1. Imprint Mode Options
Imprint Mode	Choose from the following two modes: Interactive imprint mode – allows you to manually select source and destination faces or edges in order to perform a single part or multi-part imprint. Automated imprint mode – uses an automated close part browser tool for multi-part imprinting. Review imprint mode – provides a set of metrics that gives you in-depth statistical analysis presented in a table that helps you to analyze either all or a selection of part contacts.

Table 2. Interactive Imprint Mode Options and Actions

Options when you select Single Part for Part Mode.

Merged Faces

Use Destination Part Surface

When merging/imprinting faces to other faces, the common surface belongs to the destination surface by default.

Delete Merged Faces

The imprint is carried out by deleting merged faces.

Specify Part Surface

Allows you to use an existing part surface or you can create a new surface using the Create New Surface dialog.

Tolerance

Specifies the upper limit on the distance between part surfaces that the operation imprints. When imprinting edges, the upper limit is between the edges and faces. Any part surface or edge that is not within this tolerance is not imprinted.

Merge Angle

Limits the operation to faces whose orientation to each other is less than a user-defined angle. For example, the default angle, 45 deg, means that the tool merges any source and destination faces that are less than 45 degrees to each another. This feature is useful when a curved surface touches a planar surface, such as a tire contact patch on a road surface. This option is only available when merging faces to other faces.

Merge/Imprint (action)

Executes the merge/imprint operation. This action is activated when the relevant faces and edges are added to the Source and Destination groups.

Options when you select Multi-Part for Part Mode.

Create Operation

Creates an imprint operation in the simulation tree under the Operations node. The repair imprint node includes all the parameters that were used to achieve the imprint in the surface repair tool. For more information about this operation, see Imprint Parts.

Since in Interactive mode, the Destination faces are explicitly chosen, the order of imprint in the operation must maintain this distinction in order to achieve the same imprint result. For this reason, a part priority set object is automatically created for the imprint operation containing the destination parts.

Note	The repair imprint operation can only be created for face-face imprints. The button is disabled for edge-face and edge-edge type imprints.

Show Advanced Parameters

When activated, shows all the advanced parameters. For more information, see Advanced Parameters for Multi-Part Imprinting.

Table 3. Automated Imprint Mode Options

Use all Parts

Allows you to use all the geometry parts as input for the imprint operation.

Specify input Parts

Allows you to use the object selector tool to select a specific range of input parts.

Find Pairs

Finds all items within the specified tolerance for imprinting.

Stop

Stops the browser tool and clears the imprint pair information.

Show Neighbor Parts

When activated, shows part pair common neighbours in proximity to both source and destination.

Navigation buttons

Allows you to navigate through the results. You can also use the <Right> and <Left> arrow keys to move from one result to the next. The <Up> and <Down> arrow keys allows you to view the first and last result.

Priority Indexing

Allows you to specify a priority sets for destination part assignment.

Tolerance

Specifies the upper limit on the distance between part surfaces that the operation imprints. When imprinting edges, the upper limit is between the edges and faces. Any part surfaces or edges that are not within this tolerance are not imprinted.

Imprint Pair

Imprints the current pair shown in the browser tool.

Imprint All

Imprints all close parts found by the browser tool.

Create Operation

Creates an imprint operation in the simulation tree under the Operation node. The repair imprint node includes all the parameters that were used to achieve the imprint in the surface repair tool.

Note	The imprint operation can only be created for face-face imprints. The button is disabled for edge-face and edge-edge type imprints.

Review Imprint Mode Options


Use all Parts	Selects all geometry parts as input for the review imprint operation.
Specify input Parts	Performs the imprint review on selected parts only.
Metrics	Provides a set of metrics that helps you to analyse either all or a selection of part contacts at one time.
	Part Contact Summary	Provides a general overview of all the part contacts.
	Contacting Parts Count	Computes the number of contacting parts for each part.
	Part Contact Area Ratio	Computes the ratio of the contacting face area to the non-contacting face area of a given part.
	Contact Area Mismatch	Computes contact area mismatches for non-conformal (NCI) contacts.
	Non-Contiguous Contact	Allows you to evaluate each part surface contact and reports the number of separate face groups making up the contact.
	Non-Contacting Islands	Allows you to diagnose contacts with non-contacting face islands.
	Contact Topology Errors	Summarizes the topology surface diagnostic results (for pierced faces/edges, free edges and non-manifold edges) for each part surface contact.
Calculate Metric	Calculates the part contact analysis for the selected metric.
Row selection behavior	Allows you to change the resultant scene selection each time you select a row from the table.
	Default	Default selection.
	None	Selects nothing and the existing selection is left as it is.
	Base Part	Selects the base part faces.
	All Parts	Selects the base part and contact/contacting part(s) faces.
	Contacts	Selects the part contact faces.
Navigation buttons	Allows you to navigate through the results.
Reset View	Allows you to reset the view to zoom in on the selected entities. If you deactivate the Reset View option, the view remains the same.
Reset Displayed	Allows you to reset the displayed faces, edges, and vertices to the selected entities, and two neighbors. If you deactivate the Reset Displayed option, the displayed entities remain the same.

The table below shows all the options available when you right-click a metric row result:


Right-click Menu Option	Scene Behavior
Display Base Part	Allows you to display only the base part
Display Contact Part	Allows you to display only the contact part
Display Both Parts	Allows you to display the base and contact part
Display Contacting Parts	Allows you to display only the contacting parts
Display All Parts	Allows you to display the base and contacting parts
Display Contacts	Allows you to display only the contact faces
Select Default Result	Allows you to select the metric default result
Select Contact Part	allows you to select only the contact part
Select Both Parts	Allows you to select the base and contact part
Select Contacting Parts	Allows you to select the contacting parts
Select All Parts	Allows you to select the base and contacting parts
Select Contacts	Allows you to select only the contact faces

Advanced Parameters for Multi-Part Imprinting

For multi-part imprinting, the Interactive and Automated imprint mode shares the same advanced parameters.


Method	Specifies how faces are chosen and matched for imprinting.
	Discrete Imprint	The imprint is carried out using the tessellated surface mesh of the parts. The original tessellated faces are cut to ensure that the imprinted faces match.
	Exact Face Match	The imprint is carried out using the tessellated surface mesh of the parts. Coincident vertices and faces are merged and a part contact is created between the two parts. Specify this option for part pairs that already have exact one-to-one correspondence between the faces and vertices. See Using the Exact Face Match Method.
Resulting Mesh Type	Determines if the imprinter merges the faces of the input parts.
	Conformal	The imprinter merges faces of the imprinted parts to produce a conformal mesh on the output surface.
	Non-Conformal	The imprinter does not merge faces of the imprinted parts and a non-conformal mesh is produced on the output surface.
Preprocess	Allows you to specify if any boolean operations are performed before parts are imprinted.
	No Preprocess	No boolean operations are performed before parts are imprinted.
	Boolean Subtract	A boolean subtract operation is performed before parts are imprinted.
	Intersect Surfaces (available for non-conformal imprinting only)	An intersect operation is performed to cut the existing surfaces before parts are imprinted. Coincident surfaces that lie inside other surfaces are also cut and automatically included in the resulting part surfaces.
Resulting Surfaces (available for conformal imprinting only)	Allows you to specify the surface that the resulting imprinted faces are added to. This option is only available for conformal imprinting as non-conformal imprinting creates new part surfaces by default. See Imprint Parts Resulting Part Surfaces.
	Input Part Surfaces	The imprinted faces that are created are added to the part surface of the input part.
	New Part Surfaces	The imprinted faces that are created are added to a new part surface.
Face Orientation	Allows you to specify the orientation of the matching face normals.
	Opposing and Aligned	Only target faces that are aligned and opposed outward from the normal of the matched source faces are merged.
	Opposing Outward	Only target faces that are opposed outward from the normal of the matched source faces are merged. See Using the Opposing Outward Face Orientation Option.
	Aligned Outward	Only target faces that are aligned outward from the normal of the matched source faces are merged.
Merge Angle	Specifies the maximum angle between the normals of the faces at which parts merge. Only pairs of faces which lie within the specified Value and have normal directions which differ by less than this Merge Angle are merged.