[Plugin][$] Curviloft 2.0a - 31 Mar 24 (Loft & Skinning)

benha

What's weird is that I originally skinned something exactly like this. And now I'm trying to reconstruct it. And it's not working...

@dave r said:

I see. The two sets of curves are a red herring.

I wonder if you might be better off with a different tool for what you want to do.

fredo6

@benha said:

Hrm...

Still not working:
Found and removed a stray edge
Scaled up by 10x
Welded curves together
Same failure state

Revised file attached. Still baffled.

The contour is made of a single curve with no sharp angle. Curviloft Skinning does not know where to cut the contour in 4 pieces. In such cases, you simply need to draw dummay segments, for instances at the corners.
Skin contour - dummay segments.png

Then, you select each of the 4 portions (click on it, then click in empty space).

And you apply skinning.
Skin contour.png

Fredo

PS: I also suggest you simplify a bit the contour to have a more regular spacing of the vertices, and thus obtain a more balanced mesh

benha

Argh. Still not working.

I added dummy segments, and now when I enter the skinning tool it does take four clicks to select everything. The sections break at the dummy segments. So that's progress.

But when I "click to validate" the contour just turns purple and nothing happens.

Might this be related to the fact that I'm on a Mac?

-Ben

@unknownuser said:

The contour is made of a single curve with no sharp angle. Curviloft Skinning does not know where to cut the contour in 4 pieces. In such cases, you simply need to draw dummay segments, for instances at the corners.
[attachment=1:1fqlcg7n]Skin contour - dummay segments.png[/attachment:1fqlcg7n]

Then, you select each of the 4 portions (click on it, then click in empty space).

And you apply skinning.
[attachment=0:1fqlcg7n]Skin contour.png[/attachment:1fqlcg7n]

Fredo

PS: I also suggest you simplify a bit the contour to have a more regular spacing of the vertices, and thus obtain a more balanced mesh

fredo6

Your dummy segments may not be well placed (note that the contour curve is placed exactly on top of the group which forms the border surface)
In any case, you can first select the contours and dummy segments, and then call Curviloft Skinning.
Also, if you explode that group, you'll be more confortable
It works for me

Fredo

benha

Thanks for the help. Still can't make it work, but I think it's time to give up and call it a day.

I'm guessing it's something unique to my machine/configuration or whatever. I've tried about 20 different approaches / placements of dummy segments / etc and it never works. Very odd.

Anyway, thanks again.

@unknownuser said:

Your dummy segments may not be well placed (note that the contour curve is placed exactly on top of the group which forms the border surface)
In any case, you can first select the contours and dummy segments, and then call Curviloft Skinning.
Also, if you explode that group, you'll be more confortable
It works for me

Fredo

fredo6

@benha said:

Thanks for the help. Still can't make it work, but I think it's time to give up and call it a day.

Here is the model with the Skinning, if this can help you to progress
Back%20Contour.skp

Fredo

benha

Ah! You're a star. Thanks a TON!

Here is the model with the Skinning, if this can help you to progress
[attachment=0:1m74sant]Back%20Contour.skp[/attachment:1m74sant]

Fredo[/quote]

jgb

I just had the time to install the new version of Curviloft (with Quad faces) and
BOY AM I IMPRESSED

It was great before, but with Quads it is absolutely great. No more tiny surface fragments to clean up (so far as I see). And way FASTER to boot.

I'm just getting into a total revamp of my big airplane projects' fairings, and this new version will make that a piece of cake. Compared to the old way (manual meshing and tweaking) that took days to get a fairing right, the older Curviloft reduced that to a few minute to generate the fairing, and a few hours to cleanup the surface fragments that simply added more lines and faces than needed. I was happy then.

The new version should not need more than a few minutes tweaking if needed at all.

Thanks again Fredo.

jgb

Fredo - We have A problem

The attached model is an extracted edge of a fairing. It should be a single face and all flat.

When I loft it, I get either a black face then just an empty group (thought that was fixed ) or nothing happens, but an empty group forms anyway. If I manually join verticies it will form a flat face.

There are no edge fragments, or gaps. The faces perpendicular are all properly formed, as well as the opposite edge to this one.

There are also no "errors" (colored lines) appearing, so I cannot find the problem.

I've had a few like this and it was easier to manually face them, but I figured you shold take a look at it.

Won't form a face.

benha

Interestingly, this file skins fine for me, but what you're describing is exactly like the problem I was having above.

irwanwr

@jgb said:

It was great before, but with Quads it is absolutely great. No more tiny surface fragments to clean up (so far as I see). And way FASTER to boot

i wish i could use Quads too
i agree that this plugin is really kind of wizard thing

mac1

FYI for what it is worth:
Using the skinning mode and selecting the closed loop, by left to right in context select or double click on one, then selecting the green check mark skins ok each time. If I try to select one edge, right click to bring up the context menu and select extend selection to all connected I have some problems but maybe an operator error? Note: At the steep part of the curve some triangulation is none by program to get face formation.

jgb

@irwanwr said:

i wish i could use Quads too

I don't understand what you mean. Quads are just a better method to calculate and display faces on a surface. You don't actually "use" quads specifically. The pluggins (JPP, Curviloft, etc) use them when activated.

jgb

Mac1

Neither method you suggest works for me.

I've noticed that Curviloft tends to fail when I want to form a totally or very nearly flat surface.

It also seems to be overwhelmed by large complex surfaces. It goes all rainbow on me but if I just select smaller portions without any edits, the smaller surfaces form nicely. When I then explode all the subsections, it forms 1 complete surface. A bit more work, but less aggravating than trying to find the non-existent "problem".

But all said, it is a plugin I simply CANNOT live without.

irwanwr

@jgb said:

@irwanwr said:

i wish i could use Quads too

I don't understand what you mean. Quads are just a better method to calculate and display faces on a surface. You don't actually "use" quads specifically. The pluggins (JPP, Curviloft, etc) use them when activated.

i meant the TT Quad Face tool, it seems so good so sophisticated.

fredo6

@jgb said:

Fredo - We have A problem

The attached model is an extracted edge of a fairing. It should be a single face and all flat.

When I loft it, I get either a black face then just an empty group (thought that was fixed ) or nothing happens, but an empty group forms anyway. If I manually join verticies it will form a flat face.

There are no edge fragments, or gaps. The faces perpendicular are all properly formed, as well as the opposite edge to this one.

There are also no "errors" (colored lines) appearing, so I cannot find the problem.

I've had a few like this and it was easier to manually face them, but I figured you shold take a look at it.

[attachment=3:22uctz0e]C-Loft Problem.skp[/attachment:22uctz0e]

Not sure I understand the problem.

You have too identical boomerang-like profiles placed very close each other. If you select them and use the Loft by Spline tool, you get the fin skin between the two profiles.
[attachment=2:22uctz0e]Cloft problem small.png[/attachment:22uctz0e][attachment=1:22uctz0e]Cloft problem big.png[/attachment:22uctz0e][attachment=0:22uctz0e]Cloft problem filled.png[/attachment:22uctz0e]
What else do you want?

Fredo

PS: When you select, make sure that you do not select the same segments twice. Curviloft does not trap all situations yet. THis is why you have a numbering for the profiles.

Cloft problem small.png

Cloft problem big.png

Cloft problem filled.png

jgb

I checked and I only have 1 set of lines, so I don't understand why you see 2 sets.
And, when I do select any of the 3 modes, none form a skin.

But when I select "skinning" it will give me a full black pre-skin. Hitting enter or green check leaves an empty group. If there was even a tiny gap or fragment, or double line in the selection, C-Loft would usually say so.

If you (and others) don't get the same result, the only reason I can think of is some other script in my pluggin set that you don't have is causing, let's call it, interference.

When I manually connected the opposing verticies, the skin formed, section by section, and most, but not all, the added lines could be removed without losing the skin.

Like I said above, this usually happens when I try to skin a flat or nearly flat surface.

I use "skinning" most of the time. When it doesn't work, I try the other 2 modes. When they don't work I go through the lines to find any anomalies (gaps, fragments or double lines), fix them and try again. If it is a complex or very large set of lines, I will then try to sub-divide it into several sections. Invariably the sub-sections form when the whole did not using the exact same set of lines.

I've just finished all the main fairings on my big airplane project, but over the next few weeks, I'll have a whole bunch of complex skins to create, for the aircraft's interior skins. If I do encounter any problem that persists after I fix as much as I can find, I'll post it here, not so much looking for a solution, but for you (Fredo) to analyze. Maybe there is a very subtle bug that only surfaces (no pun intended) in specific circumstances. I've been there, and that's why most of my hair has gone.

And I am not implying that I may not be doing something wrong.

mac1

I get the two lines also and is the reason I used the skinning option and get the same result as Fredo. BTW I measure 0.5 in apart and looks like by design ???
If this is not by design you may want to find the reason before going to a large project??
BTW I noted in the above post the tool triangulates and if you delete those faces are lost. Sounds like same result you are getting. My work flow is double click to get in context of the curve, select the skin tool, left click and select the total curve, select the green check and once the black is formed you need to click in space to complete the surface. Use outliner to see that a group is formed within your group and explode unless you want to keep as a nested group.

thomthom

@irwanwr said:

i meant the TT Quad Face tool, it seems so good so sophisticated.

Are you having problems in getting QuadFace Tools to work?

Jean-Franco

I did a test too without having any trouble either.
As Fredo and mac1