The process of determining which individual closed islands of space should be included in the resultant mold volume is called
classifying.
• An island is a closed volume of space in the mold model.
• Specify the islands to be included in the resultant volume.
• Classifying islands enables you to create simpler manual parting surfaces.
Figure 1 – Viewing Reference
Part Geometry
Figure 2 – Classifying Islands
Figure 3 – Resultant Mold Volume
Analyzing Split Classification
When you split a volume, depending upon the shape of the workpiece, the shape of the reference model, and the shape of the parting surface, the split may create several individual closed volumes. When you create a split using the Two Volumes option, each of these volumes must end up as part of one volume or the other. Similarly, when you create a split using the One Volume option, each of these volumes must end up as part of the new volume, or left to remain in the old volume.
Each one of these individual closed volumes occupies an island of space within the mold model. You must specify which islands of space should belong together, or be included, in the resultant mold volume. The process of determining which islands should be included in the resultant mold volume is called classifying.
Each of the islands displays in the menu manager Island List. When you hover over a given island in the menu manager, its corresponding volume of space highlights in blue in the graphics window, as shown in Figure 2.
Each of the islands you select from the Island List are included together to comprise the resultant mold volume. The islands that are not selected either end up in the other mold volume (in the case of a Two Volumes split) or discarded (in the case of a One Volume split).
A One Volume split always creates a situation where you must classify the islands to be included in the resultant volume. The reason for this is that regardless of whether you split by a parting surface or by another volume, you must specify which side of the split you want to be included in the resultant volume. You also must classify islands when you specify multiple parting surfaces or mold volumes when splitting a volume.
Classifying islands in a mold model enables you to create simpler manual parting surfaces. In Figure 1, a flat parting surface was used to create the slider mold volume shown in Figure 3. This was done by classifying the islands properly, as shown in Figure 2. Rather than creating a flat parting surface, you can create a parting surface which completely conforms to the interior of all the cuts in the reference model. You can then split the workpiece using this more complex parting surface and not have to classify islands. The parting surface would look like this
