[Plugin] Extrude Edges by Rails

ionandre · 26 Nov 2009, 19:20

It's Fantastic!

It works also on 3 closed curves.

Thank you so much

Daniel S · 27 Nov 2009, 14:52

@tig said:

Make that line divided and weld into a curve [best if it has same number of segments as the path?]

I tried to do that but the plugins dosen´t like a line as a rail.
Good tip to divide the line and then weld to make it work

I also like a lot the option to make it work with closed curves.. looks like a patch tool.

Perhaps in a future we can have a n-sided patch tool inside SketchUp

Thanks again,
Daniel S

pilou · 27 Nov 2009, 16:10

Case 1 works if volume has orthogonal segments
Case 2 & 3 & 4 yet works!

Daniel S · 27 Nov 2009, 16:23

Yes Pilou, I´m showing another possible use of what can you do with this plugin... in this cases works like a patch tool using 3 curves.

Daniel S

pilou · 27 Nov 2009, 16:37

Ah yes, sorry

ionandre · 27 Nov 2009, 20:32

Hey this plugin can also make very good lofts by rails

TIG · 27 Nov 2009, 20:43

It will 'loft' any two 'rail' curves along a profile 'curve'... That's the idea...

ionandre · 28 Nov 2009, 08:23

Just noticed this:

with a simple straight line(curve) used as profile you can loft 2 closed rail curves directly (poligons) as well, but if use an arc as profile the result is a twisted loft. Why that?

TIG · 28 Nov 2009, 09:47

It takes the nearest points of the rails to place / adjust the profile.
Split the square's edge nearest the circle at it's center.
It should then not twist ?

ionandre · 28 Nov 2009, 18:17

@tig said:

It takes the nearest points of the rails to place / adjust the profile.
Split the square's edge nearest the circle at it's center.
It should then not twist ?

Thank you for the advice, however It seems no possible.
By the way I can ever achieve the good result with the previous method.
Maybe it would be nice an option to set the starting point.
It could work well in conjuction with tool on surface I think.

By the way I think your plugin is quite revolutionary.

thanks again.

Ionandre

TIG · 29 Nov 2009, 20:07

Sorry, I don't think my last explanation was very clear.

As explained in the Tool's notes... if the Profile touches a Rail then that fixes the Profile's 'snap-point' on that Rail: it is the safest way to fix what's made - otherwise you can be surprised - like this 'twisted' extrusion.
So it if touches both Rails then that fixes the Profile without twists - sorted.

But like in your case - if the Profile doesn't touch Rail-1 then the snap-point for the Profile on Rail-1 is taken as the point nearest to the end of the Profile - unfortunately in your case Rail-1 [the square] has 4 points that are all 'nearest' to the centred Profile's start [this is after the Rail is sub-divided into parts to match the Circle]. Therefore the Tool guesses at the start of Rail-1...

Next, as in your case - if the Profile doesn't touch Rail-2 then the snap-point for the Profile on Rail-2 is taken as that point nearest to the end of the Profile; however, in your case it's a circle so all of its Vertices are equidistant from the Circle's center [the Profile's other end] ! So in this case it takes the snap-point as the one nearest to Rail-2 - and that's the bottom of the circle...

Now the Profile is snapped to that point and a point on Rail-1 - which can be guessed as any of 4 points - giving a 4:1 chance of a twisted extrusion being made...

Simple fix... the Profile's path is not change if it is relocated... So Move the Profile so that it's end is very near to the bottom Vertex of the Circle-shaped Rail... Pick that, then Pick the Circle-shape as Rail-1 then Pick the Square-shaped Rail... It should make an non-twisted extrusion.

Another way is to Divide the four edges of the Square-Rail into halves [so it then has 8 segments], then Move the Profile so it snaps to the Square's edge's mid-point that is nearest to the bottom of the Circular Rail, and then Weld the Square's 8 segments into a Curve... Run the Tool, Pick the Profile, the Pick Square-Rail, then Pick the Circle-Rail... Again it should make an extrusion that's not twisted...

xrok1 · 29 Nov 2009, 20:59

Tig, would it be possible to make your plugin so one could lasso select the rails, eliminating the need to weld them ahead of time? i ask because it seems the weld script is kind of finicky and sometimes requires some effort to get the desired results.

TIG · 29 Nov 2009, 22:56

Why is Weld so difficult - select the edges, weld them [answer No to any prompts], done ?

You'd need to select the edges with your method anyway - my plugin needs three curves - therefore weld some edges to make one if you need it...

xrok1 · 30 Nov 2009, 04:27

weld doesn't always work, sometimes i have to do some creative things to get it to work, ie allow it to make a face then delete or explode parts of the curve then weld!

jeff hammond · 30 Nov 2009, 06:12

@xrok1 said:

weld doesn't always work, sometimes i have to do some creative things to get it to work, ie allow it to make a face then delete or explode parts of the curve then weld!

yeah, i get that too.. especially if i'm far along in a model and have used a lot of rubys prior to trying to weld.. i just save the file then reopen it.. weld seems to like the fresh start

ionandre · 30 Nov 2009, 09:54

Ok, now I have clear how it works. thanks.
Best option for me is to divide polygons in two welded halves. It doesn't take too long.
Moving profile can be an option for a different result. I mean the extrusion is good but with a different form.
By the way for what I have experimented until now, the last version (3.0) of the weld tool always work for me. I did notice some problem only with old version of this plug-in.

TIG · 30 Nov 2009, 09:57

I you are trying to weld bits of curves together into one bigger curve then right-click context menu explode-curve first so that weld has raw edges to work with.

Weld will sometimes make curves with unexpected vertex order - another fix for that is to select the curve and groups it then explode the group, often that will sort it out. Again if the curve has no edges using edit-cut and imemdiately paste-in-place can reorder the vertices correctly...

If you think about it EEbyRails using some weld type algorithms to sort vertices for mesh-making, these can occasionally [mercifully very rarely!] go wrong too. If the model's data-base is a little confused picking separate edges for EEbyRails would produce as much flakiness as welding them into curves first off !

For the foreseeable future EEbyRails will require three curves to work (or two if rail1==rail2)...

dicoy88 · 1 Dec 2009, 19:22

why is it that when i try the plug in this is what i got, no success at all.

JClements · 1 Dec 2009, 22:18

Pretty Slick! Thank you, TIG.

1- Debabilizer. I am not sure but I think it is causing SU to load a lot slower. If it is not absolutely necessary, could a test be done in which it is not used to see of SU loads faster?

2- See attached. I used the colored edges to produce the top part of this swept wing. Then used joint-push-pull to creat the lower surface and then deleted extruded "side-surfaces" made by J-P-P. I wanted to see if make a rounded "lip" and along the two surfaces using Edges by Rails, but this is as good I could get it (I tried various combination of subdividing the edge rails, but the results were worse in most cases). How could a convex lip be formed along the edges of the wing?

wing.skp

TIG · 1 Dec 2009, 22:30

I've tested DeBabelizer myself and I seem to get no significant speed affects - db only kicks in when db"text" is to be shown - however, renaming the ...EN-US.lingvo file will stop it being read at all, and so it might marginally speed it up - It won't affect anything else if you are using ENglish anyway ?
Alternatively you could always edit the script itself and do a find and replace for "db">>"", but leave the def db()...end#def alone...

I think you probably need to use vanilla FollowMe or perhaps ' FollowMe and Keep' to make these rounded edges - EEbyRails is perhaps too complex for this ?