Ribs and gussets

A rib (or gusset) is a thin wall that stiffens a part, such as the triangle inside an L-bracket's corner. You draw only its free edge: PartCraft fills the space between that line and the walls. It needs the exact kernel (see The mesh kernel).

Add a rib

1. Make a plane through the middle of where the rib goes (for an L-bracket 40 deep, a plane 20 in front of its sketch: see Reference planes, axes and points).
2. Sketch on it one line from wall to wall — or a few lines end to end for a bent rib edge. The line may stop short of the walls: its ends are carried on until they meet them.
3. Select the sketch and choose More › Rib.

The rib fills from the line to the walls on the side toward the middle of the part, so a gusset lands in the inside corner. If that side is open and the other is closed, PartCraft flips it for you and says so.

Settings

• Thickness (mm) is the rib's thickness across the sketch plane. It can be driven by a parameter.
• Thickness (the choice below it): Centred on the sketch plane, In front of the plane (along its normal) or Behind the plane.
• Flip fills the other side of the line.

Messages

• On this side the rib's edge never meets the body — nothing closes in the space on that side: tick or untick Flip, or move the line so walls bound it.
• A rib needs one open chain of lines in its sketch — the sketch has a closed shape, an arc or a spline, or lines that do not join end to end.
• The rib's edge runs inside the body there — the line lies inside the solid; draw it in the open space between the walls.