\page sewing_meshes_page Sewing meshes
-\n In SMESH you can sew elements of different meshes. The current
+\n In SMESH you can sew elements of a mesh. The current
functionality allows you to sew:
<ul>
<li>\ref free_borders_anchor "Free borders"</li>
<li>\ref side_elements_anchor "Side elements"</li>
</ul>
-<em>To sew elements of different meshes:</em>
+\image html sewing.png "Sewing button"
+
+<em>To sew elements of a mesh:</em>
<ol>
<li>From the \b Modification menu choose the \b Transformation item
and from its sub-menu select the \b Sewing item.</li>
<li>Check in the dialog box one of the radio buttons corresponding to
the type of sewing operation you would like to perform.</li>
<li>Fill the other fields available in the dialog box.</li>
-<li>Click the \b OK or \b Apply button to perform the operation of sewing.</li>
+<li>Click the \b Apply or <b>Apply and Close</b> button to perform the
+ operation of sewing.</li>
</ol>
+
<br>
\anchor free_borders_anchor
<h2>Sew free borders</h2>
-This functionality allows you to unite two free borders of a 2D mesh.
+This functionality allows you to unite free borders of a 2D mesh.
+
+There are two working modes: \a Automatic and \a Manual. In the \b
+Automatic mode, the program finds free borders coincident within the
+specified tolerance and sews them. Optionally it is possible to
+visually check and correct if necessary the found free borders before
+sewing. <br>
+In the \b Manual mode you are to define borders to sew by picking
+three nodes of each of two borders.
\image html sewing1.png
+<center>Default mode is \a Automatic</center>
-For sewing free borders you should define three points on each border:
-first, second and the last node:
+To use \b Automatic sewing:
+<ul>
+<li>Specify the mesh you want to sew by selecting it or any its part
+ (group or sub-mesh) in the Object Browser or in the VTK Viewer.</li>
+<li>Specify the \b Tolerance, within which free borders are considered
+ coincident. At the default zero \b Tolerance, the tolerance used by
+ the search algorithm is defined as one tenth of an average size of
+ elements adjacent to compared free borders.</li>
+<li>To visually check the coincident free borders found by the
+ algorithm, switch off <b>Auto Sewing</b> check-box. The controls
+ to adjust groups of coincident free borders will become available in
+ the dialog.</li>
+
+\image html sewing_auto.png
+<center>Controls to adjust groups of coincident free borders</center>
+
+<li>\b Detect button launches the algorithm of search of coincident
+ free borders.</li>
+<li>The found groups of <b>Coincident Free Borders</b> are shown in the
+ list, one group per line. Each group has its own color, which is used
+ to display the group borders in the VTK Viewer. A free border
+ within a group is designated by the IDs of its first, second and
+ last nodes within parenthesis. All borders present in the list will
+ be sewn upon \b Apply. </li>
+<li>\b Remove button removes the selected groups from the list.</li>
+<li><b>Select All</b> check-box selects all groups in the list.</li>
+<li>When a group is selected, its borders appear in <b>Edit Selected
+ Group</b> list that allows you to change this group.</li>
+<li>
+\image html sort.png
+<em>Set First</em> button moves the selected border to the
+ first position in the group, as a result other borders will be moved
+ to this border during sewing.
+</li><li>
+\image html remove.png
+<em>Remove Border</em> button removes the selected borders from the
+ group. It is active if there are more than two borders in the group.
+</li>
+<li>Selection of a border in the list allows changing its first and
+ last nodes whose IDs appear in two fields below the list. \a Arrow
+ buttons near each field move the corresponding end node by the
+ number of nodes defined by \b Step field.</li>
+<li>
+\image html swap.png
+<em>Swap</em> button swaps the first and last nodes of a
+ selected border.
+</li>
+</ul>
+
+For sewing free borders manually you should switch the \b Mode to \b
+Manual and define three points on each border: the first, the second and the
+last node:
+
+\image html sewing_manual.png
<ul>
<li>the first node specifies beginning of the border;</li>
<li>the second node specifies the part of the border which should be
nodes of two borders will be either merged or inserted into faces of
the opposite border.
+In practice the borders to sew often coincide and in this case it is
+difficult to specify the first and the last nodes of a border since
+they coincide with the first and the last nodes of the other
+border. To cope with this,
+\ref merging_nodes_page "merge" coincident nodes into one
+beforehand. Two figures below illustrate this approach.
+\image html sew_using_merge.png "Merge coincident nodes, which are difficult to distinguish"
+<br>
+\image html sew_after_merge.png "After merging nodes it is easy to specify border nodes"
+
The sewing algorithm is as follows:
<ol>
<li>The parameter (U) of each node within a border is computed. So
fifth of minimum length of adjacent face edges on the borders.</li>
</ol>
-\image html image22.jpg
+\image html image22.jpg "Sewing free borders"
<b>See Also</b> a sample TUI Script of a
\ref tui_sew_free_borders "Sew Free Borders" operation.
the first border and two points on the second one. User can select
these nodes in 3D viewer or define node by its id.
-\image html image22.jpg
+\image html image23.jpg "Sewing conform free borders"
<b>See Also</b> a sample TUI Script of a
\ref tui_sew_conform_free_borders "Sew Conform Free Borders"
viewer or define node by its id.</li>
</ol>
-\image html image30.jpg
+\image html image30.jpg "Sewing border to side"
<b>See Also</b> a sample TUI Script of a
\ref tui_sew_meshes_border_to_side "Sew Border to Side" operation.
Sewing algorithm finds and merges the corresponding nodes starting
from the specified ones.
-\image html image31.jpg
+\image html image31.jpg "Step-by-step sewing process"
-\image html image32.jpg
+\image html image32.jpg "The result of side elements sewing"
For sewing side elements you should define elements for sewing and two
nodes for merging on the each side. User can select these elements and
<b>See Also</b> a sample TUI Script of a
\ref tui_sew_side_elements "Sew Side Elements" operation.
-*/
\ No newline at end of file
+*/
