About this project
A demonstration of a post-processing stack running on a single node. Half a body is authored in the tree, and four steps then run on it in order: mirror, surface offset, shell, cut plane. Every step has its own switch, so they can be turned off one at a time to see what each contributes and how much the order matters. This is a system demo scene, not a part.
The source solid
The tree itself is small: a rounded box with a cylinder at one end, unioned together. Only half the body is modelled, running from the origin outwards, and the length, width and height of that half are fixed in the scene rather than exposed as controls. Everything on the far side of the origin is produced by the first post-processing step.
Mirror and surface offset
Mirror reflects the authored half about a plane through the origin to give a symmetric body. Switch it off and what remains is the half that was actually drawn, which makes the rest of the stack easier to follow.
Surface offset grows or shrinks the whole surface, from -0.5 to 1.5 mm: positive expands, negative shrinks. It runs before the shell, so whatever is set here changes the outer surface the shell is later measured from.
Shell and cut plane
Shell hollows the body inwards at a wall thickness of 0.75 to 2 mm. This is the number to watch, because it acts on a body the offset step has already resized, so the wall you end up with depends on both. If the result looks wrong, check the offset before changing the thickness.
The cut plane runs last and is there for inspection rather than shape. It stands vertical and slides from -6 to 6 mm along its normal, so it can be swept through the part to look at the shell wall from any station. Which side of the plane is kept is fixed in the scene rather than exposed.