Matching Shank

Matching

Matching builds the companion band for a ring that already exists. Instead of sweeping a profile along a plain circle, it fires a ray from every section of the new band against the ring you point at, and seats each section exactly where it touches. The result is a band whose face follows the silhouette of the engagement ring — flush at the top where the setting bulges, straight down the sides and around the bottom.

This is the wedding band of a bridal set, and it is also the way to build a shadow band, a contour band or any second ring that has to nest against a piece you have already finished.

Run the command with the ring already selected, or press Enter at the prompt and pick it later from the panel. The panel opens on the library of saved Matching styles: click one to preview it, double-click it — or press Edit in the header — to go through to the parameters.

Selection

The Selection expander holds the mother — the ring, or the whole design, the new band has to match. It stays re-pickable while the panel is open, so you can swap the reference without restarting the command. The pick may span several objects; they are merged into one reference mesh, which is what lets you point at a finished design rather than hunting for the single brep of its shank.

The rail the band is built on is always the finger-size circle driven by the Size panel, so the band’s own diameter is set there and nowhere else.

Parameters

The parameters are split across two tabs.

Band

The section swept around the band, and how tightly it hugs the ring.

• Profile: the section curve, picked from the RING_PROFILE library or edited in place with the curve editor.
• Top Width / Top Height: the section at the top of the ring, in millimetres.
• Bottom Width / Bottom Height: the section at the bottom. The two sections blend into each other up the sides, so a band can taper from a broad top to a narrow shoulder.
• Sections: how many profile stations are probed against the mother ring. The value is always even and never below two — one lands on the top and one on the bottom, the anchors of the blend — and typed odd numbers are rounded up. More sections follow an intricate ring more faithfully and cost more to compute.
• Distance: the gap along the finger axis between the band and the ring it matches. Negative values press the band into the ring.
• Top Distance: extra gap applied at the top only, fading smoothly to nothing by 90°. This is what you open when a protruding oval or pear head pushes the band away at the centre but the sides should still sit tight.
• Side: which face of the mother the band is built against — Side A, Side B, or Both Sides. Both Sides computes a mirrored pair, each one probed against its own face, because the ring it hugs need not be symmetric.
• Interior: Solid leaves the inner face flat; Comfort domes it toward the finger and reveals the Comfort field for the depth of the dome, in millimetres.

While this tab is open the viewport carries handles for the same values: two on the top section and two on the bottom for width and height, and one handle per section along the band that adds a personal delta on top of the contact the command computed — drag one out to open a gap at that station, drag it in to press the band closer.

Gems

A toggle at the top of the tab turns the stone run on. Everything below it is grouped into pill sections.

Layout

• Distribution: Full runs stones the whole way round as one closed line; Side runs them between two angles on each side; Top covers a single arc centred on the top of the band.
• Size Start / Size End: stone diameter at each end of the run, in millimetres. Setting them apart graduates the stones along the band.
• Vertical: raises or lowers the stones relative to the band surface.
• Min Distance: the smallest gap allowed between neighbouring stones.
• Top Inner Width / Bottom Inner Width: the width of the channel the stones sit in, at the top and at the bottom of the ring. The channel blends between the two the same way the profile does; leave the bottom value at zero to keep it the same as the top.
• Top Inner Height / Bottom Inner Height: the depth of that channel at each end.
• Inner Margin: the metal left below the stones, toward the inside of the band.
• Bright Cut: the height of the bright-cut edge between the metal and the stones.
• Start / End: the angles, in degrees from the top, where the run begins and ends. Shown for the Side distribution only.
• Angle: the total arc covered, in degrees. Shown for the Top distribution only.
• Row Offset: shifts the whole row sideways across the band, positive toward the ring being matched.
• Gem Shape: Round or Square.

The start and end of the run also carry handles on the band in the viewport, so the extent can be dragged instead of typed.

Prong Settings

Three buttons choose how the stones are held: without prongs, with shared prongs, or with a scalloped setting.

With shared prongs you get:

• Top Diameter / Bottom Diameter: prong diameter at the top and bottom of the ring; zero on the bottom keeps it the same as the top.
• Prong height: how far the prong stands above the stone.
• Prong distance: how far the prong sits from the stone.
• Single end prong / Double end prongs: how the run is closed off at each end. The choice is hidden on the Full distribution, which has no ends.

The scalloped setting adds V-Cutters, Boolean and Remove Channels toggles, plus two pill sections of their own:

• Cutters — Start Height, Start Width, End Height, End Width, Length, Move in Z, Move Middle in Z, the cutter Shape (U, V, square, trapezoidal or French), a Mode that ties the start and end together or frees them, and a Shape Scale slider between round and square.
• V-Cutters — Start | Width, Start | Height, End | Width, End | Height, Length, Move by Normal, and the same Mode.

Drill Settings

Two buttons switch the drilling off or on. With it on:

• Allow Intersection and Show control whether the drill volumes may overlap and whether they are drawn in the viewport.
• Height Top, Height Crown, Height Girdle, Height Pavilion and Height Drill set the vertical proportions of the hole, as percentages of the stone.
• Size Top, Size Drill and Size Bottom set its widths, and Gem Inside how deep the stone sits into it, in millimetres.
• Type: the section of the hole — following the gemstone shape, or round, square or hexagonal.

Working with the panel

• Refresh in the header recomputes the preview. Nothing is computed until a mother ring has been picked — without one there is nothing to hug.
• Save stores the current parameters in the Matching library so the style can be reused on the next set. Back returns to that library.
• Save defaults stores the current values as the starting point for the next run; right-click the same button to clear them.
• Accept bakes the band, its stones and its prongs, grouped together, and lists them in the Outliner.