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

fredo6

New Beta version of Curviloft 1.0c and LibFredo6 3.5c - 20 Aug 10
see Main Post for download

This is an interim version whose purpose is to fix some bugs signaled by users and to prepare a next release which will be more functional. Again, thanks to all users for their help and contribution.

Skinning: Bug on Mac preventing to Skin even simple shapes. Thanks to Mariocha and to Cmeed for signaling
Skinning: Pre-selection mode should work with more shapes. Thanks to Daniel S. for providing some good examples.
Loft Along Path: Still not finished. At least I have tried to improve the single-contour mode (kind of Follow Me, but accepting contours even non perpendicualr to the rail).

By the way, I noticed some differences with the native SU FollowMe tool.

Fredo

Rich O Brien

Thank You Fredo, great update

EarthMover

Awesome. Thanks Fredo!

mariocha

Soon as I heard the good news, I gave a quick try to the new 1.0c
It worked just great on the file causing problems before (on Mac).
I will give it a more thorough spin tomorow.
and find the donation menu ...
mille merci !!

grim

fredo and Danial s

i have installed the latest uptate and tested it on the tangent at vertex skp and the tent1 skp
in chosing on of the tangent at vertex outlines and the skinning command the programe runs and then flashes between thick line to thin line with the green tick floating after 2 hrs it said it was done in 2 second and showed no meshing i tryed this on all shapes in the file and no luck in getting a skin,

what might the problem be here.

in testing it in the tent1 skp i se no change in the result from the previous version and get a better result in using tigs rail plug in.

not sure if it is just me or has anyone else had a similar result

regards

grim

Daniel S

This new beta is amazing!!!

The skin works with all the shapes that I tried... only one not work... Seems that there is a problem when you put arcs with tangent ar vertex..

I have no idea how to explain this.. so I take the definition from the sketchup help:

"Tangent at Vertex: The Tangent at Vertex inference indicates an arc whose vertex is tangent to a previously drawn arc's vertex. The Tangent at Vertex inference is represented by a cyan arc"

Also I include quick shapes that I made to recreate and show this.

Thank you Fredo!!!
Daniel S

EDIT: I delete the attachment because it can cause confusion.

Daniel S

@grim said:

i have installed the latest uptate and tested it on the tangent at vertex skp (...)

Hi grim...
The "tangent at vertex.skp" is a file that I upload to show that is not working for this kind of shapes...
It can cause confusion so I remove it.
In the latest version... Fredo fix some issues and now is working for more shapes...
Try skin with this ones to see if it is working for you.

Daniel S

PS. I think it will be a good idea to add a test .skp file next to the download link of the plugin... so people download and can test the plugin inmediately.

There are a lot of good examples on this posts, but perhaps not everyone wants to read all the pages.

skin working.skp

ken

Fredo6

Will I have downloaded the latest version of Curviloft and I get a complete shutdown of Sketchup, no error message, just a program shutdown. Note, I am not sure if I had this shut down problem with your earlier versions, as I have been re-installing, with great care all my plugins, trying to limit or remove the graying out problems I had in the past.

So I removed all plugins expect for your new version. Works great. Started reloading plugins in alphabet order. Found that the plugin "Sunposition.rb" was the guilty party, causing some kind of conflict. Not sure what the conflict is, however your program works without this program loading, and with Sunposition.rb loaded, you program shuts down Sketchup. Note, I am not implying your program or the sunpostion plugin are at fault, just that they will not work together.

Just thought I would pass this along. Now does anyone know of a sun positioning program that will not cause problems?

Again thanks for all your plugins.

Ken

fredo6

@unknownuser said:

Fredo6

Will I have downloaded the latest version of Curviloft and I get a complete shutdown of Sketchup, no error message, just a program shutdown. Note, I am not sure if I had this shut down problem with your earlier versions, as I have been re-installing, with great care all my plugins, trying to limit or remove the graying out problems I had in the past.

So I removed all plugins expect for your new version. Works great. Started reloading plugins in alphabet order. Found that the plugin "Sunposition.rb" was the guilty party, causing some kind of conflict. Not sure what the conflict is, however your program works without this program loading, and with Sunposition.rb loaded, you program shuts down Sketchup. Note, I am not implying your program or the sunpostion plugin are at fault, just that they will not work together.

Just thought I would pass this along. Now does anyone know of a sun positioning program that will not cause problems?

Again thanks for all your plugins.

Ken

Ken,

Could you give me a link to this SunPosition script so that I have a look at the possible conflicts.
In principle if there is one, it should also exist with the previous version 1.0b

Fredo

Rich O Brien

Here for the sunposition.rb

fredo6

ABOUT A CONFLICT BETWEEN sunposition.rb and Curviloft
There is a known problem which causes a crash of Sketchup when both Curviloft and sunposition.rb are installed.

I am contacting Gabriel Miller on his site (he is the author of the sunposition script).

In the mean time:

either take the attached modified version of sunposition
version slightly modified by Fredo to avoid conflicts with other Ruby scripts
or comment out lines 45 to 50 (by putting a # in front of each line)

Then both Curviloft and sunposition should work fine.

Fredo

PS: sunposition.rb overwrites and extends some Ruby built-in classes (precisely Float#round), which causes the problem. This may affect other scripts than just Curviloft.

fredo6

Just a precision on some issues mentioned in the previous posts. Curviloft may have problem to identify the right contours in PRE-SELECTION mode.
However, you can always default to the MANUAL selection mode, where you have options to select curves only, or even the contours edge-by-edge.
Tangent at vertex.gif

Fredo

jeff hammond

@unknownuser said:

Just a precision on some issues mentioned in the previous posts. Curviloft may have problem to identify the right contours in PRE-SELECTION mode.
However, you can always default to the MANUAL selection mode, where you have options to select curves only, or even the contours edge-by-edge.

Fredo

oh nice. thanks for clearing that up.
i keep finding all these little options and i gotta admit, i'm very impressed..

for one, the spline lofting is great.. at first, i was set on skinning and trying to form all of the encompassing curves but in many cases, it seems as if loft will actually make my life way easier.. especially once i started experimenting with the different spline methods.. namely, the two junction by orthogonal curve methods..

i'm sure i'll have some questions soon about what's actually happening with those but for now, i'll continue experimenting with them.

cmeed

Thanks fredo6 for the latest update. letting you know that the Tent1.skp happily skinned on my mac
cheers

fredo6

@unknownuser said:

especially once i started experimenting with the different spline methods.. namely, the two junction by orthogonal curve methods..

Jeff,

Note that these two methods, by arc of ellipse and by arc of Bezier, are correct for straight junctions, but I still need to work out the case where you end up with an S-curve (I only implemented an approximate solution, due to lack of time).
I am interested in your evaluation, because I added the methods just for trial, not being sure this corresponds to real situations.

Fredo

jeff hammond

@unknownuser said:

Jeff,

Note that these two methods, by arc of ellipse and by arc of Bezier, are correct for straight junctions, but I still need to work out the case where you end up with an S-curve (I only implemented an approximate solution, due to lack of time).
I am interested in your evaluation, because I added the methods just for trial, not being sure this corresponds to real situations.

Fredo

here's a simple example.. i've added some notes to the skp showing things that aren't possible with other sketchup lofting/skinning plugins and i've only seen them in rhino.

i'll compile a few other examples a little bit later that show some of the problems and other advantages i've seen..

[edit - the lofted surface in the attached skp was formed using the two curves on the left side with the spline method set to ortho bezier]

JH_curviloft1.skp

fredo6

Jeff,

It seems the S-curves are working fine in your case (contours are in parallel planes).
The two methods are designed to ensure tangential continuity between contours, so that you can chain them in one block. Below is your model, slightly amended, where the whole shape is generated in one pass.

JH Curviloft1.gif

Fredo

Dave R

Fredo, just another thank you. The Skinning function turns out to be the perfect tool for sculpting seats such as this one for a Welsh stick chair.

Thank you.

mitcorb

@Fredo6:
This tool may be in beta, but the couple of times I have used it show that it is very effective, and, once again I must salute you for your talent, and thank you for your generosity.
Humbly,
mitcorb

Efrado

FREDO you HIT IT AGAIN!
THANK YOU