Help lofting

oneturboneeded · 3 Feb 2011, 03:07

Hi i have several plugins to loft with but I can not manage to loft this, can anyone help me thanks lots.

mitcorb · 3 Feb 2011, 03:44

What plugins do you have?
Can you post your skp in version 7? Not necessarily for me, but for others who may not have upgraded.

chrisjk · 3 Feb 2011, 08:05

Your geometry is really messed up. I deleted lots of little stray edges around the tip of the tail end of the body and was then able to do (badly) a quick skin with TIG's plugin.

I suggest you redraw the thing rather than try to correct this model. I had to zoom in to a huge extent to deal with the stray edges.

tuna trace.skp

fredo6 · 3 Feb 2011, 08:09

@oneturboneeded said:

Hi i have several plugins to loft with but I can not manage to loft this, can anyone help me thanks lots.

You can try Curviloft Skinning, as shown on the video below.
You have first to clean up the model from small segments.
You also need to add a splitter segment for the head and for the tail to tell Curviloft where to split the contours.

Fredo

PS: I would suggest you also smooth the contours, in particular toward the head to have a more continuous mesh.

tuna trace - Curviloft.skp

mac1 · 3 Feb 2011, 16:23

chrisjk
Have you found the plugin straylines at http://www.smustard.com/script/StrayLines . It really helps with this type of issue

oneturboneeded · 4 Feb 2011, 01:49

Thank you so much for all the help got it now.

TIG · 4 Feb 2011, 12:38

After some tidying and welding of sets of edges into curves to use as Rails/Profiles EEbyRails works fine too

oneturboneeded · 5 Feb 2011, 07:11

Wow tig that is perfect. Now i need to figure out how to do that . What do you mean by weld do i need a plug in?

Krisidious · 5 Feb 2011, 07:32

I tried modeling a tuna not long ago... I quit after a while I couldn't find a shape I was happy with... this is awesome tutness.

chrisjk · 5 Feb 2011, 07:52

@mac1 said:

chrisjk
Have you found the plugin straylines at http://www.smustard.com/script/StrayLines . It really helps with this type of issue

mac1, I do have that plugin but didn't use it on this occasion - it would have been smarter to do so but I just kind of dived into the model once I found I couldn't weld a couple of lines.

TIG · 5 Feb 2011, 08:27

@oneturboneeded said:

Wow tig that is perfect. Now i need to figure out how to do that . What do you mean by weld do i need a plug in?

Get weld.rb from Smustard.com [free] - it's indispensable.
A selected set of connected edges are made into a 'Curve' [aka 'a Polyline'] - the requirement for many of my EEby... tools... Arcs, Circles and Beziers are already 'Curves' but any Edges can be made into them...
Remember to get rid of stray lines before trying to 'weld' - so there is no 'branching'.
Note how an edge touching it will 'split' a curve into two pieces - just as with an Arc.

oneturboneeded · 5 Feb 2011, 17:57

Well i think im retarted... I went to smusterd and got weld and stray lines. There both text files and I don't know how to get them to work, none of the other plugins were txt they were rb or a zip.

Gaieus · 5 Feb 2011, 18:10

If you somehow managed to save them as txt files (Notepad or similar will automatically add this extension to files that you do not specifically add the extension) just rename them to rb and install (copy) them to the
C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8\Plugins
folder

oneturboneeded · 5 Feb 2011, 18:25

You rock, thanks that got it.

oneturboneeded · 5 Feb 2011, 19:17

Ok now i have my 4 groups extruded by rails how do i combine into one group eliminate the lines between groups and smooth? Im just getting lazy now that you are all so helpful and guide me strait to the right operation but im learning lots thanks.

TIG · 5 Feb 2011, 19:35

@oneturboneeded said:

Ok now i have my 4 groups extruded by rails how do i combine into one group eliminate the lines between groups and smooth? Im just getting lazy now that you are all so helpful and guide me strait to the right operation but im learning lots thanks.

Select the 4 groups [hold down Ctrl to add to a selection, Ctrl+Shift to remove from selection and Shift to toggle in/out of selection!]
Self right-click context-menu 'Explode'.
Everything remains selected, immediately right-click context-menu 'Group'.
Everything is now in one group.
Select that group and right-click context-menu 'Smooth' - adjust the settings in the dialog that opens so it's smoothed.
If there are an edges that won't edit the group and smooth using Erase+Ctrl OR if that fails hide them using Erase+Shift...
As you have only made a 'half' you can them copy the group to one side ans Scale it -1 about Y/green so it flips.
Move the two groups so they snap together correctly, when you are happy Select both groups and Explode, re-Group, and re-Smooth as before.......