[Plugin] Extrude Edges by Loft

TIG

@ben ritter said:

TIG, I keep getting bug splats. Trying to do 2 meshes on 3 circles. Each circle has a line attached to it.

Can you post an example image or skp...

xrok1

WOW... a thing of beauty! ...Nice job TIG

I was wondering if its possible to include a Straight line in the "Extrude Edges by Rails" ruby. I have been faking it by drawing a curve with very little radius up to now. Cheers!

Tomot after you draw a curve then use the move tool to move the center of the arc back into line with the ends.

forest19901211

fantanstic

szastoupil

Hi. I'm having trouble getting the plugin to work with my model. I have a set of curves I want to join, but I'm not able to select the curves. I tested the install using the arc tool with success. In my model I created the "arcs" by stretching/scaling a circle. I believe I exploded the shape along the way. There must be something fundamental that I missing that is required for the plugin to work. Any thoughts? My file is attached.

aphrodite.skp

Rich O Brien

There was a few small errors in your model that prevented using this tool successfully.

First your 's were exploded, which prevented being able to select them as profiles. If in the future you need to turn exploded curves back to curves use this plugin to 'weld' them back together.

Also some of your 's didn't touch your 'rails' which would give you an unnecessary twist in your mesh.

I used Fredo's Bezier Tool to create the profiles that matched those in your reference drawing. Make sure you read all of the first post in Fredo's thread for instruction in how to install.

See the attached file, in it I used TIG's EEbyR tool to create the mesh, it probably doesn't suit but it may help? If you've further queries please post back.

aphrodite.skp

TIG

Thanks rclub24...
As you say, firstly in the case of most of the EEby.. tools the profile[s] and rail[s] must be 'curves' [probably better thought of a 'polylines' - as they are not necessarily what many think of as 'curves' ?] - you can easily use weld.rb to fix them if they are not !
Secondly use the EEby.. tool that's best suited for what you want to make - here it's EEbyRails not EEbyLoft ???***
Read the tools' guides, look at what other exciting things users are doing with these tools, and above all keep experimenting [and asking when in problems]...
In passing... your model has some problems - Layer0 and another is "off" - don't put geometry on separate layers - model on Layer) and then put groups/component-instances on layers to control visibility - it doesn't separate geometry so you can't weld the 'hoops' into a curve because they are split by geometry on layers that are not visible !!! Though I suspect EEbyRails is what you want NOT EEbyLoft anyway*** ???

Rich O Brien

@TIG

it's always a pleasure to try explain the best way to utilise your toolset. Anytime you post solutions you clearly explain the merits of exploring different approaches. Still find it hard to understand the terminology you guys use at times. But that's half the battle!

Cheers,
Rich

lildavido

Hi there,

I have tried all the suggestions with the copy pasting , and the line to start and stop.
But i am encountering problems with the loft tool. As it keeps twisting sometimes but sometimes it works., but now i cant seem to find any faces.
When i try and loft it , it makes 0 faces. here's the skp file. and what i want to achieve.
Basically making a curved truss . As shown on the left.

Thanks for your help. its a weird prob...

an image of the problem

the skp file

TIG

Here's v1.7 with a 'Quad Face' option [smoothed diagonals] added to complement thomthom's Quad-Tools.
See here for notes and link to the zipped toolset http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=231016#p231016

TIG

Here's v1.8 with a 'Quad Face' option [smoothed+hidden+soft diagonals] added to complement thomthom's imminent Quad-Tools.
See here for notes and link to the zipped toolset http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=231016#p231016

TIG

Here's an update v1.9 http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=231016#p231016
Smooth now ignores edges with only one face...

TIG

Here's update v2.0 http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=231016#p231016
The Quad Faces option now meets Thomthom's latest specs... See the notes and get in from the linked zipped set...

thomthom

Good stuff TIG. Very speedy updates.

TIG

I only needed to change one line of code in two files !
Writing the version notes etc, assembling the zipped file and editing the forum threads took most of the time

newson888

great