Re: [Plugin] Quick Lathe v1.2.0 31mar2013

Box

Ah I see now.
Would never have thought it was in that direction.
Perhaps a choice of one way or the other is possible.

Dave R

Steve, if you are going to modify the plugin for those quarters as I showed, may I suggest that you also see if you can work in a way to get the first and last segments in the extrusion to be perpendicular to the ends of the extrusion? Here's an example where I've set that up for a turned leg. The segments marked in red are perpendicular to each other. These would be the first and last segments for a quartered lathed shape.

I normally set up these types of things that way so I can avoid the shadow line at the seam as you can see in my example in my other post.

As to getting rid of the profile faces, that would be a nice option although it isn't difficult to do manually. Of course for something like my table leg or your knobs, those faces aren't required. the main reason I remove the faces is so it won't show through at the seam lines.

gilles

You made a very good one here, be proud of you.

Many thanks.

Trogluddite

@gilles said:

You made a very good one here, be proud of you.

Thankyou Gilles, it's been very satisfying to make something useful - and of course, we must not forget all the other kind and generous people here who made it possible for me to learn all these things.

@box said:

Perhaps a choice of one way or the other is possible

Yes, it looks like it will have to be done that way - I made a little test rig to try putting the welded curves the other way, and bar a few minor bugs, that works OK. But whatever I do, SU won't let there be welded curves in both directions at once - I tried it using some of the other welding and recurving plugins, and it seems that the geometry just isn't allowed to work that way.
So it will have to be an either/or thing.

@dave r said:

first and last segments in the extrusion to be perpendicular to the ends of the extrusion

Hmm, i hadn't considered that, but i know what you mean, it does kind of spoil the appearance when you get those unsmoothed joins.
I'll have tinker and see how likely it is once I've tidied up a few other things - the code is getting a little unmanageable with all this "feature creep" going on, so I need to get everything nice and structured so I can see the wood for the trees.

PS) Just about there with the co-planar faces thing, so maybe a minor update coming soon just to get the low hanging fruit picked off.

Trogluddite

Version 1.1.0 now available in the Top Post.

New features...

Co-planar faces can now be merged.
When doing arcs, you can choose capped or uncapped ends (or hidden ends for 'seamless' component arrays)
Can now make components as well as groups.
New features added for making arrayed component 'segments' which will join seamlessly, including perpendicular end-caps (as per Dave R's examples in above posts).
First draft of .pdf user guide (very rough - needs many pictures adding!!)
Re-factored code should be a little faster and more robust (and maintainable!!)

Still to do...

Face orientation correction only works 100% for closed solids ("capped" arcs and 360deg lathes). Sure this is fixable.
Extrudable end caps - losing co-planar edges makes push/pull possible now, but still working on making them 'smooth aware' for when circles and arcs are extruded.

Trogluddite

Ooops' apologies to whoever just uploaded - that wasn't the right Ruby file. Re-upped!

gilles

Just select the face WITHOUT its edges and a line for axis.

Works fine.

driven

Working now, very clever indeed...

john

chin925

quick lathe sir i installed the plugin but did not appear in tools menu thks

pilou

Cool one

In the case of less 360°
Does it possible to have the End caps as a new selection ?

And a negative angle (or similar) for have a continuous second form etc...!

In this case the "new selection" will make a "return" with the new axe!
( 3 curvated blue arrows wanted ! )

notpossible.skp

jolran

Cool!! I don't lathe that often except for coffee, but this one was clever.

A quick question LOCAL_X. Cant You just use X_AXIS ? Since its already available can save you some typing

Trogluddite

Thanks for the reports and kind words - good to know that it is (mostly!) working!

@chin925 said:

quick lathe sir i installed the plugin but did not appear in tools menu thks

Hi there - there was a damaged file for the download - I replaced this very quickly, but saw that one person downloaded the bad file. Maybe this person was you?
Please try with the newest file (v1.1.1) in the top post - if this one is also broken for you, then let me know, and I will see if I can find the problem.

@unknownuser said:

Does it possible to have the End caps as a new selection ?
And a negative angle (or similar) for have a continuous second form etc...!

Hi Pilou - yes, negative angles can be made possible. I avoided negative angles before because it made shapes with a mixture of front/back faces - but with the new code, I will be a able to make this work with a simple transformation.
Selecting "follow-on faces" is difficult at the moment because the end faces can be in different groups - but maybe by moving the original selection it could be done.

I think first, I will work on the user interface - already the options are becoming untidy, so I think it needs a proper tool (e.g. rotation arrows for the selection, like in your picture) to make the tool operation more clear.

@jolran said:

A quick question LOCAL_X. Cant You just use X_AXIS ?

He he, a "Doh!" moment! I didn't see the 'X_AXIS' etc. constants before - thanks for the tip, that will be very useful.

jolran

Yeah, it doesent say so in the API. I think it was TIG who told me last year or so.

pilou

@unknownuser said:

Selecting "follow-on faces" is difficult at the moment because the end faces can be in different groups - but maybe by moving the original selection it could be done.

In the case of Geometry is enable and not Group or Component !

gilles

@unknownuser said:

Cool one

In the case of less 360°
Does it possible to have the End caps as a new selection ?

And a negative angle (or similar) for have a continuous second form etc...!

In this case the "new selection" will make a "return" with the new axe!
( 3 curvated blue arrows wanted ! )

[attachment=1:1045vhv7]notpossible.jpg[/attachment:1045vhv7]

This can be done reversing the selected face(s)

pilou

@unknownuser said:

This can be done reversing the selected face(s)

Tricky... but that oblige to reverse again the result for have a consistant volume

And as you have several volumes the orient face just work for ONE volume!

So very, very tiedous when have thousand of volumes!!!

Else very funny when the successive selection will be made! Some sinuous volumes will be made!
(in mode Geometry enable) And think to erase the internal faces!
Bravo for Trogluddite!

And it's a little pity that the axe must be coplanar and not with any orientation!
I don't see not very big differences on the calculation!

Happy easter Eggs!

ken

Just a quick note. If the version number in the plugin forum is V1.1.1 than the version number in the rb file should be the same. The version number in the download is V1.1.0. This just makes it easier for multiple upgrades, one can be sure he is operating with the newest version.

And this from a very grateful user of your plugin who is incapable of writing one line of code.

Again thank you for this plugin. Since I model from ACAD/DXF files, I find this a very useful plugin.

Ken

Trogluddite

v1.2.0 now available in the top post.
New Stuff...

Negative angles now supported, so you don't need to keep reversing faces.
Faces don't need to be co-planar - though take care, it means the faces must be triangulated, so much more geometry!
Face orientation improved - 'inside out' forms should happen much less often.

@unknownuser said:

version number in the rb file should be the same.

Oops, yes, that was a bit naughty. v1.1.1 was a bit of a rush job after I realised that I broke the previous upload by leaving in some de-bugging code.

@Pilou
Your funny shapes are very inspiring! May have to re-name the tool though - it's some funny kind of lathe that could do those shapes!

This will probably be the last v1.x update - I'm now working on a whole new user interface to make the settings more visual and easier to work with, and enable a few of the other cool features that people have requested.
Here's a little sneak preview of where I'm at so far...

COMING SOON(ISH)!
Features which will almost certainly be included...

Ability to select faces from other contexts (e.g. inside multiple groups/components)
Axis and angle setting by drawing them with inferences from other geometry.
On screen direction arrows and colour coding, so you can visualise the settings more easily.
Quick VCB input of values, and help/hints in the status bar.

Dammit, this Ruby thing is addictive...

pilou

Very cool effort!
Test as soon as possible!

Works fine except unexpected oriente face

Missing automatic Updated Selection between new axis
Must be not a "face" but a profil until the last end face!
So result will be a real "solid"!

Suggestion : run the script with only a list of axis in one pass

smicha

Great plugin. Thanks a lot.

I find it similar to TIG's "extrude edges by lathe" - I like both of them.

My question is - is it possible to add an extra option to "follow me" around a square?