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

blackcat1313 · 11 May 2015, 05:09

Hi - I have been using this great plugin to design a sailplane wing. I hope to be able to create either a mold or plug using a CNC router from the design. The main part of the wing and the very small end portion of the wingtip are done, but the elliptic section in between won't loft.

In the attached file, there are 7 curves representing the airfoil shape at different stations along the wingtip. Everything has been scaled up 100x to avoid the "small edge" problem. The trailing edge of the foil is left open as it is easy to add this face once the rest of the surface is lofted.

I can loft between most pairs of adjacent foils successfully, but when more are added, Curviloft "twists" the vectors at the trailing edge. The problem seems worst on foils 3 and 4, counting from the root. I have tried untwisting them using the plugin features, but I can't get that to work.

The edge count in the foils is pretty high, as these are automatically generated by an airfoil program. I don't have any convenient way to control this. I have a feeling that if this could be reduced, it might work. I was hoping though that some one would have another suggestion.

Thanks!

Bill

Loft Problem.skp

Box · 11 May 2015, 07:16

You can use another of Fred's excellent plugins to cleanup before lofting.
Here it is cleaned with Curvizard then Curviloft.

blackcat1313 · 11 May 2015, 14:56

@box said:

You can use another of Fred's excellent plugins to cleanup before lofting.
Here it is cleaned with Curvizard then Curviloft.

That is amazing, thank you so much! I installed Curvizard, followed the video, and everything was looking good until the last loft segment. Then I got a bugsplat.

Any ideas? I'm using Sketchup 2013 on a Mac if that makes any difference.

Bill

blackcat1313 · 12 May 2015, 16:00

Hi Box -

I have been looking at the documentation for Curvizard and I see there are quite a few settings on the buttons palette that affect the way the tool works. Would it be possible for you to share with me the settings you used to clean up the curves? The video above is tightly cropped so the settings are not visible. Thanks!

Bill

blackcat1313 · 14 May 2015, 17:02

@box said:

You can use another of Fred's excellent plugins to cleanup before lofting.
Here it is cleaned with Curvizard then Curviloft.

You may have been able to loft it, but can you make it into a solid? I have been able to loft using 4 the airfoils, but even though it looks good, there are too many errors to make it into a solid. I can get faces on the root, tip, and trailing edge, but Solid Inspector**2 finds hundreds of problems that it says cannot be fixed automatically.

This is with Sketchup 2015, I upgraded to see if that would improve things. It didn't.

caermalo · 18 Jun 2015, 11:34

Hello fredo
I have the following problem with the plugin

dogtorque · 19 Jun 2015, 17:38

OH MY GOD!
Thank You so Much
I just tried out this tool and it works it is saving me sooo much time in my creating the faces in my 3d models! and since I do 3d modeling of my own car designs so I can use them in unity this tool is like a blessing! and that it is free just makes you a generous person! if anyone else made this tool they would more than likely of charged a large amount of money for this tool which would suck because I literally don't have a budget for my 3d modeling because I don't have a job right now and I'm currently living with my parents.

jmeek · 11 Aug 2015, 17:06

I'm using Curviloft on a Mac. It worked great for one day. Now skinning process bar just stops with 0%. No further effort on my part seems to correct this situation. I'm trying skinning function on a very simple wire frame. Can anyone offer suggestions?

Dave R · 11 Aug 2015, 20:13

Maybe you could post the SKP file? We might actually be able to help you if we could get our mitts on it.

jmeek · 12 Aug 2015, 13:38

Curviloft skinning is working now, after uninstalling and reinstalling Fredo6 Tools. The disruption of began after installing Fredo6 Tools over top the already installed Curviloft.

JClements · 13 Oct 2015, 22:03

Request: For lofting along a path, could its prompt read,
"1st Select Lofting Path, thenEdges to be Lofted".
It would help new users or those who haven't used the plugin in a while.

fredo6 · 14 Oct 2015, 18:00

Good idea. Thanks
Actully Curviloft needs some refresh to be more user-friendly.

Fredo

spardacus · 16 Dec 2015, 13:17

Is there any way to resize the control panel in the Sketchup Interface? Even when I lower my screen resolution the Control panel remains rather small - too small to read.

See attachment.

fredo6 · 17 Dec 2015, 14:00

@spardacus said:

Is there any way to resize the control panel in the Sketchup Interface? Even when I lower my screen resolution the Control panel remains rather small - too small to read.

See attachment.

I don't see the attachment.

Unfortunately, there is no solution from the plugin. You may want to have a look at the following thread, where the problem is evoked with some solution.

Fredo

fredo6 · 17 Dec 2015, 14:03

@jclements said:

Request: For lofting along a path, could its prompt read,
"1st Select Lofting Path, thenEdges to be Lofted".
It would help new users or those who haven't used the plugin in a while.

By the way, the latest version (published for SU2016) includes a status and tooltip to indicate the order of selection.

Fredo

JClements · 17 Dec 2015, 15:04

Thanks.

derei · 5 Jan 2016, 17:05

Curviloft is creating strange looking geometry on Single F-Spline Curve Mode. Can't figure out why.
I would appreciate any idea why this is happening.
Thank you.

Please see attached image and skp file.

curviloft.skp

fredo6 · 5 Jan 2016, 18:01

Derei,

There is a bug / limitation for close-loop contours with F-Spline. It certainly deserves a fix.

Might be the same for B-Spline with close-loop by the way.

Fredo

derei · 5 Jan 2016, 18:20

@fredo6 said:

Derei,

There is a bug / limitation for close-loop contours with F-Spline. It certainly deserves a fix.

Might be the same for B-Spline with close-loop by the way.

Fredo

After MANY tries I was able to fix it. I cut the loop in two, deleted the last segment (on the part whith the glitch), then I mirrored it to make it again closed loop. After doing the same to all tree loops, the skinning went well. Can't understand why. What was different in the newly made curve...

Because I tried before only to delete the two segments (on both side of symmetry plane) and redraw them... but that didn't fix the problem. Only completely deleting half and mirroring it after redrawing the segment helped.

fredo6 · 5 Jan 2016, 18:40

Glad you found a workaround.

Actually, closing splines 'nicely' is not so easy, and FSpline is somehow special, home-made. So I need to adjust the method.

Fredo