Which plugin to make a skin follow the path?

chang11234 · 14 Feb 2012, 03:11

Hi guys, I meet a problem here. I draw the elevation, I need to make it follow the outline of building, to the effect on the right. Thanks.

mitcorb · 14 Feb 2012, 03:59

I did it using FredoBend on an approximate model. My plan was simple filleted rectangle. I faked a facade something like yours, set some fillet distances and some side distances. I made a flat facade and drew the lines representing the beginning and ending of each fillet. In other words one big rectangle with flat faces and arc faces drawn flat true circumferential distance. I bent the rectangle at each arc 90 degrees in 4 steps. Straighforward, not elegant. I also tried it with projected/extruded areas on the face. Can be done. Bend the facade successively 4 times until closed. Since your larger faces are also curved, you could work this out. Maybe I can show you my simple approach, and you can take it from there.

mitcorb · 14 Feb 2012, 04:03

Of course, there may be a way to apply it as a texture, if that is all you need with no surface features.

chon · 14 Feb 2012, 08:28

Shape bender might do that i think...

mitcorb · 14 Feb 2012, 18:56

@chon:
I believe you may be right. But it would appear that the facade would need to be separated and each part bent alone, and then reassembled. I tried a new plan resembling the one in the original post. Because I used Entity Info to get arc lengths with ~ approximated distances, the accuracy of the wrap was not so good.
A caution on the ShapeBender approach (and I don't know this for sure) would be that the edges of the segments could be distorted so that a considerable amount of hand work would be necessary to stitch this form together.
I am pretty sure there is someone thinking this problem out. I do not have the luxury of large segments of time to apply.

chang11234 · 15 Feb 2012, 02:36

@mitcorb said:

I did it using FredoBend on an approximate model. My plan was simple filleted rectangle. I faked a facade something like yours, set some fillet distances and some side distances. I made a flat facade and drew the lines representing the beginning and ending of each fillet. In other words one big rectangle with flat faces and arc faces drawn flat true circumferential distance. I bent the rectangle at each arc 90 degrees in 4 steps. Straighforward, not elegant. I also tried it with projected/extruded areas on the face. Can be done. Bend the facade successively 4 times until closed. Since your larger faces are also curved, you could work this out. Maybe I can show you my simple approach, and you can take it from there.

I tried the FredoBend and it worked. As you mentioned I did separated some parts then assembled. Thank you!
But when I modify the corner, I can't really do anything to change it.

01.skp

mitcorb · 15 Feb 2012, 02:53

Is it behaving as a group, or component? Or is there some other difficulty?

Edit: Your figure is a group within a group within a group. You may wish it to stay that way, but you will need to do a right click>EditGroup repeatedly to get to base geometry and it appears it is editable then.

chang11234 · 15 Feb 2012, 03:03

@mitcorb said:

Is it behaving as a group, or component? Or is there some other difficulty?

After the FredoBend, the corner is devided into too many geometries. I wanner modify some parts on the corner, to make more or less openings.It 's difficult to do with SU default tools.

fredo6 · 15 Feb 2012, 03:41

@chang11234 said:

@mitcorb said:

Is it behaving as a group, or component? Or is there some other difficulty?

After the FredoBend, the corner is devided into too many geometries. I wanner modify some parts on the corner, to make more or less openings.It 's difficult to do with SU default tools.

I suggest you try without the auto-slicer (key F4), as your shape seems already divided into small pieces.
Then Bend will not add more geometry.

Fredo

chang11234 · 15 Feb 2012, 03:50

@unknownuser said:

@chang11234 said:

@mitcorb said:

Is it behaving as a group, or component? Or is there some other difficulty?

After the FredoBend, the corner is devided into too many geometries. I wanner modify some parts on the corner, to make more or less openings.It 's difficult to do with SU default tools.

I suggest you try without the auto-slicer (key F4), as your shape seems already divided into small pieces.
Then Bend will not add more geometry.

Fredo

It's not working with F4, because it won't bend.