[Plugin] Extrude Edges by Rails

TIG · 5 Jan 2010, 22:01

@bob james said:

I have been trying to use this ruby since version 1 to make an aircraft body.
I just can't seem to get it to work even with version 2.
Profile 2 is just a scaled up version of profile 1.
All lines are welded after setting to the matching number of segments.
This is just the latest in many tries.
Help

You can try exploding the Curves and immediately re-Welding them back together - sometimes Curves get muddled in the data-base...
OR try splitting the shape into say three pieces with extra intermediate 'profiles' and make say three meshes and join them at the end ?
Like this...

charly2008 · 5 Jan 2010, 22:11

This is a truly phenomenal tool. Some tries.

driven · 5 Jan 2010, 22:41

@bob james said:

This is just the latest in many tries.

Help :?

Hi Bob, some more things to try...

There are basically 8 ways ( that could give your expected outcome) for any 4 loose profiles (16 if you add surfaces to each, 32 if you don't mind Scaling the length or width back after processing )- Most give either normals or reversed identical copies, some differ and that might be the one you want.

What I've done with stubborn ones is
save them into a new drawing, scale x 10, explode curves, re-Weld, moveCopy of each line out-board by a fraction

you now have 8 line segments, 4 attached + 4 unattached, name or number them, (e.g. L1,L2; T1,T2; R1,R2; B1,B2),
if you really want to be methodical, make 8, 16 or 32 sets of this, side by side, cut and paste in place (just to be sure there clean)
go through all combinations i.e. L1-T1-L2-B2 and name the new group after each combination is used, if you don't want to scale back to size use attached lines as you rails for the first 8 sets

If none work at all you probably have a ruby class, i get some issues if I've used certain tools to make the curves, but closing and reopening the drawing clears those and I also had a problem selectonopen. rb so I binned it and use the space bar.

this plugin is worth getting to know, it's very,very useful ...

john

PS. to speed things up click no all pop-ups, and then you have a proper record of what does what.

Bob James · 5 Jan 2010, 22:49

@driven said:

PS. to speed things up click no all pop-ups, and then you have a proper record of what does what.

John,

I'm not sure I understand your suggestion, but thank you for it.

Not too sure what "click no all pop-ups" means

Bob

Bob James · 5 Jan 2010, 22:50

Thanks, TIG: I may have "broken the code" another way (random luck?)

I lowered the segment count to 20 in the rails. The only problem I can see is the "puckering" at the front end.
The wings and tail surface were also made with EEbR.

The nose piece was made with another great ruby: Soap Skin Bubble.

I made the more complete model some time ago by "brute force": note how much smoother the latest is.

Charly2008: Could be the start of some awesome spaceships

!["Puckering at the nose"](/uploads/imported_attachments/lWWo_Puckering.jpg ""Puckering at the nose"")

TIG · 5 Jan 2010, 23:00

@bob james said:

@driven said:

PS. to speed things up click no all pop-ups, and then you have a proper record of what does what.

John,
I'm not sure I understand your suggestion, but thank you for it.
Not too sure what "click no all pop-ups" means
Bob

When the Mesh is made you get a series of dialogs pop-ups that ask if you want to do things to it - like 'Reverse Faces'.
If you answer 'No' to all of them you get to see what's been done... admittedly loads of temporary never-seen groups, point-clouds and the like have gone, but you get to see the mesh edges, triangulation etc that might otherwise be changed had you answered 'Yes'.
The first option 'Reverse Rail...' can only be done by the script, but all of the the others can be done outside of the script after the Mesh is finished, using built-in SUp tools like Reverse, Intersect, Smooth etc or readily available plugins like Erase-Coplanar-Edges...
I recommend that you try and keep the 'bits' relatively simple, with common profiles used from one to the next, mirroring halves etc...

Bob James · 5 Jan 2010, 23:09

Got it.

Click no for all pop-ups. I've been doing that and smoothing after it's all done.

driven · 5 Jan 2010, 23:55

@bob james said:

@driven said:

I'm not sure I understand your suggestion, but thank you for it.
Bob

Hi Bob,
I see TIG has covered what I meant by pop-ups, but in case it's a more overall misunderstanding.
A few more bits...
Any ruby can only do what YOU tell it to do, based on your understanding of what the script author has told it to do, based on his understanding of SU team has told SU to do, and on and on....
So as non-authors the only bit we can do is either randomly stumble about using a script and hope it works (which is quite fun) or we can methodically evaluate OUR input and keep track of what happens when we do certain things. Then if we come across something 'odd' we can then ask someone else to try exactly what we've done to see if it might be a 'bug' somewhere up stream or simply a local issue.
Because Mac's can have there own set of problems with SU I have been using the above approach on many rubies to make sure problems aren't just me, or my mac's, and it's a great way of getting your head around what can and can't be done with a new ruby.
I also check results against other methods and sometimes (but not with the ground breaking one like this) find that the vanilla SU tools or a discarded 'oldskool' ruby do what I've been trying to achieve for weeks much faster.

cheers for a another great script TIG...

john

TIG · 6 Jan 2010, 16:57

Here's v2.1 http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=201286#p201286

General speed improvements and tidying up.
Toolbar added and Tooltip Text added to command.
Outliner clash minimized with start+commit changes.
Undo's step back through Smoothing, Reversing etc.
Rare incomplete coplanar edge deletion fixed.
Faces orientation fixed if has a flat face at zero.

To do: Consolidate the closing option dialogs into one dialog.

Feedback please...

driven · 6 Jan 2010, 19:26

Hi Tig,

Just to confirm it all seems to work on the mac, tool bar stays between sessions, no new clashes, needed a few more 'first rail reversals' then previous, but I just randomly chucked down and rotated 2 lines to test on, so not surprised, just gets better... cheers.

one thought, is it possible to allow navigating to see if you need to reverse a rail, from some views the new mesh can hide an issue?

john

urs0815 · 6 Jan 2010, 19:56

Hallo Tig,

great plugin!

could you make it possible, that if I change one of the original curves/rails,
the mesh gets rebuild automatically...

TIG · 6 Jan 2010, 22:05

@driven said:

Hi Tig,
Just to confirm it all seems to work on the mac, tool bar stays between sessions, no new clashes, needed a few more 'first rail reversals' then previous, but I just randomly chucked down and rotated 2 lines to test on, so not surprised, just gets better... cheers.
one thought, is it possible to allow navigating to see if you need to reverse a rail, from some views the new mesh can hide an issue?
john

I am still looking at ways of removing [most] rails reversal issues - probably in next release...

DIEGO-RODRIGUEZ · 7 Jan 2010, 02:47

excellent plugin. really very useful. thank you very much for sharing tig

TIG · 7 Jan 2010, 09:02

@urs0815 said:

Hallo Tig,
Great plugin!
Could you make it possible, that if I change one of the original curves/rails,
the mesh gets rebuild automatically...

It would be possible to link the rails/profiles/mesh together and observe if a rail/profile changed and redo the mesh... BUT since curves are so easily split or erased and the meshes are often intended to be pieces of larger assemblies I have no plans to do this [yet?]... EEbyRails is intended as a quick way to make a meshed surface bounded by profiles and rails - and that's it at the moment...

plot-paris · 7 Jan 2010, 09:26

thank you very much TIG. results seem to be a lot more predictable now (on Mac). great work!
I am looking forward to all the prompts at the end being gathered in one window...

charly2008 · 7 Jan 2010, 14:42

Hi,

Some experiments with only three curves. gives interesting organic forms.

Experiment with Three curves.skp

mitcorb · 7 Jan 2010, 18:07

TIG:
Thank you very much for sharing v2-1. In your honor, I renamed my copy of the zip file TIG-EExRv2-1. This will also help me to identify the file for housekeeping.
You really are a very talented non-sleeper.
Best regards,
mitcorb

Arc · 8 Jan 2010, 09:25

Thank you very much TIG, it's very useful.
I'm Arc from http://www.SuBlog.net
Here is my translation.

中文汉化包 by www.SuBlog.net

TIG · 8 Jan 2010, 09:59

@arc said:

Thank you very much TIG, it's very useful.
I'm Arc from http://www.SuBlog.net
Here is my translation.

I'll include it with future releases - thanks

Kazziga · 10 Jan 2010, 16:47

Thanks TIG! This is what I've been waiting for! It will help me with making the hull of the Brazilian steam frigate Amazonas and some other 19th century warships that are waiting to be made in 3D.