Loft questions
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ok, I see frenchy's post using just 2 splines. i'd still like to see what type of surface is created by lofting the simple curves in the model.
What I am trying to figure out is how to decide where to place the bezier curve "handles" that help guide the flow from one spline to the next. On just 2 splines I haven't been able to think of an acceptable solution, because the handles often just end up exactly between the start point and end point, and then there is no real bezier curving going on. Its just a straight line connection.
So i'ld like to see how other software are handling only 2 splines. Non planar is now a whole new monster to deal with
Chris
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That would be an awesome SU addition, you think it may be possible?
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@chris fullmer said:
Ahh, that totally answers my question. Yes, those splines are not planar. Interesting.
Can you do a loft with only 2 spline instead of three? Maybe if you could just loft everything in the attached model? That would be helpful! Thanks,
Chris
Here i attach the results.
If you need more send me the .skp.Daniel S
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Number can be any
Ps Where is the plug for test your curves?
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@Solo, yes Its totally possible. I have a working protoype, but its incredibly stupid at this point. I've got a lot of coding to add to it to make it smart enough to work regularly. The biggest tasks ahead are re-ordering the points in the splines so that they are in order from start to end, then figuring out how place the handles.
Other than that, the actual surface maker is working very well. Its just hard to feed it use-able points.
Chris
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um...all sounds Greek to me, a "yes it's possible 'cos I'm a great ruby geek" would have been sufficient.
Very cool, this will add to my bunch'o fantabulous tools y'all code-jockeys have been so kind to make for us.
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here an example of 2 no planar curves
(it's nurbs curves but I believe that is the same for beziers curves
Generally "start/end" of the closed curve it the point were the curve is closed
here at 15 h 15 O'Clock
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Goodness, and I thought the forums were a little slow today....I guess you just gotta ask the right question!
well, I've got an idea of how to proceed now. Thanks very much for the models and image everyone. I see now that some of what is going on is not as hard as I had thought. Of course, some of it is significantly harder....so I guess it all balances out.
Still working...
Chris
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ok, I've got it working well as long as each spline has the same amount of segments. And it doesn't really smooth out the mesh over 3 splines. I'll see if I can get one or both of those figured out tonight and maybe post a test version of the script in the next 24 hours. Thanks for everyone's help!
Chris
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Chris,
It might be worth also looking at how 3ds Max handles lofting. Although it only uses 2D splines, there are some parameter adjustments in the modifier panel that would be interesting to explore and possibly adapt into sketchup functionality, particularly the "fit" option. These two loft tutorials show pretty well how it works and they give a glimpse into the loft modifier rollout panel. Let me know if you want me to take some screen shots of all the Max lofting parameters.
http://www.hallofheads.com/tutorials/tut7.htm
http://tutorialscentral.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33I don't know that you could ever push sketchup to do the kind of lofting that a nurbs modeler like Moi can do, but then again, you ruby geniuses always seem to amaze me.
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Thanks for the links Adam. I've tried to use the loft tool in 3dsmax and I've done basic lofting with it. But that what you showed is very advanced. Probably out of the scope of what I think I'll ever be able to implement. But perhaps simplified versions of that could sneak into scripts. But I suppose I would have to understand how that stuff works in order to implement it.....
Chris
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What is the difference between your future Loft Plug and the Sandbox "From Scratch"?
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From scratch essentially just draws straight lines between the curves (contours).
Curve stitcher is also similar to this loft script.
My loft will (theoretically) draw bezier curves between the curves. But with just 2 curves, there is realy no way to set up a bezier curve. But with 3 or more it should/will work great.
And on top of that, my script will adjust for curves with varying segment counts, hopefully work with closed and open curves, and it lets you control how many segments are created between each segment.
Here's a video. I was planning on releaseing something tonight, but I've gotta go to bed instead. I'll try to release this tomorrow. (it might take a long time to load, so just keep waiting for a bit....sorry)
This video is not for the faint of heart - 22mb and 3+ minutes of no sound. It sort of shows how "from contours", curve stitcher, and loft compare. But again, my loft tool has a few more key features to add.
[flash=793,643:27hg2omq]http://www.chrisfullmer.com/forums/loft_test.swf[/flash:27hg2omq]Chris
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Sweet! The curtain shape looks really nice.
No sleep for you!! Get some caffeine and get back to work! ...pleeeeease... -
Cool pedagogic demo!
So your future plug is also a sort of subdivision tool -
Really cool stuff Chris! Would you ever see the script being able to be used in the same fashion as From Contours for creating landscape terrain? It would be great to have a tool that would act as From Contours does, but result in a tessellated mesh that could then be adjusted with the Smoove Tool.
With the ability to tessellate lofted meshes, the next thought would be a tool that could sculpt the mesh. Acting similar to the Smoove tool in it's soft selection, but allowing for dragging the tool to raise each face along it's normal. The pressure of the sculpt tool could be adjusted based on the height each normal is moved. Do you think this would ever be possible?
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The "Smoove Brush" tool would be a neat feature. I use Zbrush for alot of my soft modeling needs, but sketchup is starting to horn in on some of the easier stuff.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/813025/quick_sculpt_in_zbrush/
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Thats a cool demo, I've seen their sculpting tools before, they are incredible!
I think that the demo shown there, that level of sculpting, would be possible with SU. I could be wrong though. It might have to be done with all edges turned off. And it would never be able to do as much detail as zbrush. Just typing the phrase "billions of polys" on this computer just crashed my SketchUp I had running in the background.
Chris
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Pilou, in what program are you making those loft images?
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