Tech Tip: Converting Surfaces to Solids

Onshape has been adding Advanced Modeling Tools at a rapid rate. If you’ve been watching the past few updates, you’ll know that we’ve been adding more curves, more surfacing tools, and have been expanding on other commands to make it easier to create more complex shapes. One very important part of this workflow is converting surfaces to solids. There are three ways to do this in Onshape. Let’s take a look:

Thicken

First, select the Thicken command from the toolbar.

Then select the faces/surfaces that you want to thicken and enter a thickness.

Enclose

Just below Thicken on the toolbar is Enclose, which allows you to create a solid from an enclosed selection of surfaces and/or planes.

Fill

Fill allows you to create a surface defined by a boundary of edges and/or curves. If the Fill you create encloses a boundary, it will automatically create a solid from the enclosed volume.

Converting your surfaces to solids in Onshape is easy. Give it a shot and please let us know what you think in the Onshape Forums.