Hey, I imported a .step file looking to make changes to the some of the faces on the model, but I’m unable to figure out how to get the curves to be actual fillets instead of dozens of faces. In simple cases, I can delete the faces until I get a straight edge again then add the fillet back. However, in the below corner there’s so much overlap I can’t find what faces need to be deleted over others and I keep getting errors.
Is there an easier way to get the normal unfilited edges back or do I just need to fight through all the tiny faces until I the result I’m looking for?
@markse is right: this STEP was made from a mesh, so there’s no fillet in the file to get back. Each thin face is a strip of the original triangles. Deleting them one by one gets messy at a corner like yours, where several rounded edges meet.
What works better is to rebuild the whole corner instead of repairing it:
Measure the radius first. On a 90° edge, the round starts exactly one radius away from where the two flat faces would meet. So measure from the first thin face to that imaginary corner. If it’s 3 mm on both sides, it was a 3 mm fillet.
For a rounded outside corner, sketch a rectangle on one of the flat faces so it lines up exactly, and extrude a block that fills the corner out to the sharp edge. Union it with the body. The thin faces end up inside the block and disappear. For a rounded inside corner, do the same with Subtract.
Fillet the new sharp edges at the radius you measured. Where three rounds meet, fillet all three edges in one go so the corner blends.
It takes a few minutes per corner. Leave the faceted areas you don’t need to change alone. They print fine as they are.
If the model came from a download site, it’s also worth asking the designer for the original STEP.
