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

benha

Howdy.

I'm having a bit of trouble and would appreciate suggestions. I'm trying to skin a pair of surfaces and the curviloft tool isn't working.

I haven't had that problem before - anyone care to suggest why the two wireframes in the attached file won't skin?

To clarify: This is supposed to be two parallel surfaces, offset by a small gap. The two closed hoops are what I'm trying to skin.

Back Contour.skp

-Ben

TIG

Benha

Try to weld[.rb] the two loops into curves [loops].
Try scaling it up x10 to avoid tiny edges/facets issues [scale down after skinning].
You will find one loop had a minuscule edge off perpendicular that's not needed - erase that and re-weld the rest...
Then it should skin OK...

benha

Hrm...

Still not working:
Found and removed a stray edge
Scaled up by 10x
Welded curves together
Same failure state

Revised file attached. Still baffled.

Back Contour.skp

@tig said:

Benha

Try to weld[.rb] the two loops into curves [loops].
Try scaling it up x10 to avoid tiny edges/facets issues [scale down after skinning].
You will find one loop had a minuscule edge off perpendicular that's not needed - erase that and re-weld the rest...
Then it should skin OK...

Dave R

Works fine here using Loft by Spline

Back%20Contour.skp

benha

Sorry. Must not have been clear. Wrong way. I'm trying to loft the two surfaces bounded by the loops, not the space between them.

@dave r said:

Works fine here using Loft by Spline

Dave R

I see. The two sets of curves are a red herring.

I wonder if you might be better off with a different tool for what you want to do.

benha

What's weird is that I originally skinned something exactly like this. And now I'm trying to reconstruct it. And it's not working...

@dave r said:

I see. The two sets of curves are a red herring.

I wonder if you might be better off with a different tool for what you want to do.

fredo6

@benha said:

Hrm...

Still not working:
Found and removed a stray edge
Scaled up by 10x
Welded curves together
Same failure state

Revised file attached. Still baffled.

The contour is made of a single curve with no sharp angle. Curviloft Skinning does not know where to cut the contour in 4 pieces. In such cases, you simply need to draw dummay segments, for instances at the corners.
Skin contour - dummay segments.png

Then, you select each of the 4 portions (click on it, then click in empty space).

And you apply skinning.
Skin contour.png

Fredo

PS: I also suggest you simplify a bit the contour to have a more regular spacing of the vertices, and thus obtain a more balanced mesh

benha

Argh. Still not working.

I added dummy segments, and now when I enter the skinning tool it does take four clicks to select everything. The sections break at the dummy segments. So that's progress.

But when I "click to validate" the contour just turns purple and nothing happens.

Might this be related to the fact that I'm on a Mac?

-Ben

@unknownuser said:

The contour is made of a single curve with no sharp angle. Curviloft Skinning does not know where to cut the contour in 4 pieces. In such cases, you simply need to draw dummay segments, for instances at the corners.
[attachment=1:1fqlcg7n]Skin contour - dummay segments.png[/attachment:1fqlcg7n]

Then, you select each of the 4 portions (click on it, then click in empty space).

And you apply skinning.
[attachment=0:1fqlcg7n]Skin contour.png[/attachment:1fqlcg7n]

Fredo

PS: I also suggest you simplify a bit the contour to have a more regular spacing of the vertices, and thus obtain a more balanced mesh

fredo6

Your dummy segments may not be well placed (note that the contour curve is placed exactly on top of the group which forms the border surface)
In any case, you can first select the contours and dummy segments, and then call Curviloft Skinning.
Also, if you explode that group, you'll be more confortable
It works for me

Fredo

benha

Thanks for the help. Still can't make it work, but I think it's time to give up and call it a day.

I'm guessing it's something unique to my machine/configuration or whatever. I've tried about 20 different approaches / placements of dummy segments / etc and it never works. Very odd.

Anyway, thanks again.

@unknownuser said:

Your dummy segments may not be well placed (note that the contour curve is placed exactly on top of the group which forms the border surface)
In any case, you can first select the contours and dummy segments, and then call Curviloft Skinning.
Also, if you explode that group, you'll be more confortable
It works for me

Fredo

fredo6

@benha said:

Thanks for the help. Still can't make it work, but I think it's time to give up and call it a day.

Here is the model with the Skinning, if this can help you to progress
Back%20Contour.skp

Fredo

benha

Ah! You're a star. Thanks a TON!

Here is the model with the Skinning, if this can help you to progress
[attachment=0:1m74sant]Back%20Contour.skp[/attachment:1m74sant]

Fredo[/quote]

jgb

I just had the time to install the new version of Curviloft (with Quad faces) and
BOY AM I IMPRESSED

It was great before, but with Quads it is absolutely great. No more tiny surface fragments to clean up (so far as I see). And way FASTER to boot.

I'm just getting into a total revamp of my big airplane projects' fairings, and this new version will make that a piece of cake. Compared to the old way (manual meshing and tweaking) that took days to get a fairing right, the older Curviloft reduced that to a few minute to generate the fairing, and a few hours to cleanup the surface fragments that simply added more lines and faces than needed. I was happy then.

The new version should not need more than a few minutes tweaking if needed at all.

Thanks again Fredo.

jgb

Fredo - We have A problem

The attached model is an extracted edge of a fairing. It should be a single face and all flat.

When I loft it, I get either a black face then just an empty group (thought that was fixed ) or nothing happens, but an empty group forms anyway. If I manually join verticies it will form a flat face.

There are no edge fragments, or gaps. The faces perpendicular are all properly formed, as well as the opposite edge to this one.

There are also no "errors" (colored lines) appearing, so I cannot find the problem.

I've had a few like this and it was easier to manually face them, but I figured you shold take a look at it.

Won't form a face.

benha

Interestingly, this file skins fine for me, but what you're describing is exactly like the problem I was having above.

irwanwr

@jgb said:

It was great before, but with Quads it is absolutely great. No more tiny surface fragments to clean up (so far as I see). And way FASTER to boot

i wish i could use Quads too
i agree that this plugin is really kind of wizard thing

mac1

FYI for what it is worth:
Using the skinning mode and selecting the closed loop, by left to right in context select or double click on one, then selecting the green check mark skins ok each time. If I try to select one edge, right click to bring up the context menu and select extend selection to all connected I have some problems but maybe an operator error? Note: At the steep part of the curve some triangulation is none by program to get face formation.

jgb

@irwanwr said:

i wish i could use Quads too

I don't understand what you mean. Quads are just a better method to calculate and display faces on a surface. You don't actually "use" quads specifically. The pluggins (JPP, Curviloft, etc) use them when activated.

jgb

Mac1

Neither method you suggest works for me.

I've noticed that Curviloft tends to fail when I want to form a totally or very nearly flat surface.

It also seems to be overwhelmed by large complex surfaces. It goes all rainbow on me but if I just select smaller portions without any edits, the smaller surfaces form nicely. When I then explode all the subsections, it forms 1 complete surface. A bit more work, but less aggravating than trying to find the non-existent "problem".

But all said, it is a plugin I simply CANNOT live without.