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

Dave R

@woodmaster2013 said:

I just install curviloft plug in and I cant see in my sketchup window. Any comments please? im a newbie here. Thank you admin ...

As cotty says, more information would be useful. I expect you've not installed it correctly and/or you didn't bother to install the required LibFredo6 files.

Dave R

@unknownuser said:

I am testing a lofting workflow on simple geometry and Sketchup keeps crashing when trying to loft simple lines.

The process is this:
Draw a line
copy 4 times some distance
move 3 lines vertically up some to distance
select each line in sequence left to right
run curviloft

The tool activates then hangs sketchup. If I loft arcs or other shapes it seems to work fine.

I am using Sketchup 8 and Sketchup2013 on OSX 10.8.5. Both seem to be affected.

Thanks,

Mike

How about posting an example SKP file of what you tried to describe?

Mvmcneil

@dave r said:

@unknownuser said:

I am testing a lofting workflow on simple geometry and Sketchup keeps crashing when trying to loft simple lines.

The process is this:
Draw a line
copy 4 times some distance
move 3 lines vertically up some to distance
select each line in sequence left to right
run curviloft

The tool activates then hangs sketchup. If I loft arcs or other shapes it seems to work fine.

I am using Sketchup 8 and Sketchup2013 on OSX 10.8.5. Both seem to be affected.

Thanks,

Mike

How about posting an example SKP file of what you tried to describe?

The file is not complicated is it only 5 lines and nothing more and it is a fresh file just after Sketchup starts. This is created in Sketchup 8.

I did try as Cotty suggested above to run Curviloft then select the lines. It worked and didn't crash Sketchup, but other geometry seems to work without running Curviloft first.

Mike.

lines-test.skp

Dave R

It may not be complicated but you don't describe which direction you copied the lines or how far. why would you even want to use Curviloft of those lines? What sort of result are you expecting?

Mvmcneil

@dave r said:

It may not be complicated but you don't describe which direction you copied the lines or how far. why would you even want to use Curviloft of those lines? What sort of result are you expecting?

I am using a workflow process that is not uncommonly used in Rhino to connect two planes or surfaces without using arcs. I am trying to use simple geometry as a test first before it would be used later on a more complex model. I like to test things like this out on simple models before I try incorporate it into my modeling process, and I noticed this was causing sketchup to freeze on OSX. I am not sure if the same behavior happens in Windows as I am not at work to try it in that environment.

Mike.

jgb

@unknownuser said:

Draw a line
copy 4 times some distance
move 3 lines vertically up some to distance
select each line in sequence left to right
run curviloft

The tool activates then hangs sketchup. If I loft arcs or other shapes it seems to work fine.

Thanks,

Mike

I do not understand what you think CL will do with a set of unconnected lines. CL needs a closed perimeter of some sort to create the intervening mesh. With 5 parallel unconnected lines, CL can do nothing. I tried it and got the usual CL "I'm stumped" color codes. It did NOT hang my system.

Box

Selected the correct way it creates this, but the wrong way freezes SU.

Dave R

It works fine for me, too.

It doesn't need to be a closed loop.

lines-test~.skp

jasonotero247

hello,

I autoinstalled Libfredo 5.2 and curviloft using skecthucation pluginstore 2.0. But now I am having trouble locating them in sketchup in order to begin using them. Can anyone help. Thank you.

Jason

Dave R

Did you read the first post in this thread? It tells you where to look.

jasonotero247

I did look under the tools tab and there is nothing there.
I am using Bootcamp, Windows 7, SU 2013 and using the sketchucation plugin store to autoinstall the plugins.

daloop

Hi everybody,

I have the same problem as Missy_X a few posts above.
Whenever I activate one of the Curviloft functions in SU2013 (Windows 7, 64Bit), the "Curviloft: Temporary" window pops up immediately. I don't get the usual Fredo-Bar on top of the editor and the plug-in does not work. I can select edges behind the popup, but there's no preview and no lofting.

The Ruby console shows nothing at all. I do have all the latest versions (including libFredo 6.5.2) installed.

This is going on for a few days now. The plugins used to work fine. My current workflow relies on setting up 3D-Bezier curves and skinning them with Curviloft.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

fredo6

@daloop,

Could you post an exmaple of the error traces (there is the button in the temporary window to export the trace file).

Thanks very much

Fredo

daloop

@fredo6 said:

Could you post an exmaple of the error traces (there is the button in the temporary window to export the trace file).

Thanks for your support.

Sorry, but I can't find any buttons on the window:

fredo6

Then, could you post the model you are working on.

Thanks

Fredo

daloop

@fredo6 said:

Then, could you post the model you are working on.

OK, here we go:
Bezier12.zip

fredo6

@daloop

Curviloft does not know how to skin continuous loops. You should use TGI3d for that (or maybe Soap Skin & Bubble).

With Curviloft Skinning, you need to cut the contour into 4 pieces. This can be achieved by creating small breaker segments as shown in the picture.

Daloop - Beizer12.png

Then, you can skin the shape.
Daloop - Bezier12.skp

Fredo

daloop

Hi Fredo,

@fredo6 said:

Curviloft does not know how to skin continuous loops. You should use TGI3d for that (or maybe Soap Skin & Bubble).

With Curviloft Skinning, you need to cut the contour into 4 pieces. This can be achieved by creating small breaker segments as shown in the picture.

Thanks again.
To see if I got it right: If the tool stops working and I only get the temporary window, I have to break up the curve.
May I humbly suggest a future version of Curviloft that behaves a bit more gracefully?

Attached is a lofted version I did last week. It is much more along the lines I need, as it is less concave than yours. It could be, though, that I broke the curve by lofting another, adjacent surface. But not into more than 2 pieces.
Loft13.zip
Any idea how to control the concavity? I can't change the Bezier curves, as they have real-world constraints.
I did try Soap Skin & Bubble but I like the Curviloft surface better.

Dave R

@daloop said:

To see if I got it right: If the tool stops working and I only get the temporary window, I have to break up the curve.
May I humbly suggest a future version of Curviloft that behaves a bit more gracefully?

I would respectfully disagree with you. Curviloft works just fine and is graceful as it is. It does exactly what Fredo said it does in the first post of this thread.

@unknownuser said:

Curviloft is a script dedicated to Loft and Skinning, that is, generation of surfaces from contours.

Loft by Spline joins separate contours, open or closed, by smooth splines

Loft along Path joins contours, along a given rail curve.

Skinning create surfaces bounded by 4 or 3 contiguous contours

The plugin can't help that the user doesn't set up the curves correctly.

@daloop said:

Any idea how to control the concavity? I can't change the Bezier curves, as they have real-world constraints.

Add some additional curves to define the concavity you desire.

daloop

Hi Dave,

Curviloft doesn't need your defense. The tool is a great piece of code and it does what is described in the docs.
Still, if I feed it a curve it can't compute it sometimes goes into a state where I only see the temporary window, even if I use it on other geometry that should loft just fine. And this state is even retained between restarts of SU.
I thought this could maybe qualify as a useability issue, if not as a bug, even if the behaviour was produced by user error.

@dave r said:

@daloop said:

Any idea how to control the concavity? I can't change the Bezier curves, as they have real-world constraints.

Add some additional curves to define the concavity you desire.

Thanks for the suggestion. I do know, that I could even draw each and every face manually in 3D space to get the surface I want.
I was just hoping that Curviloft could maybe spare me from that tedium and as it already produced a nice surface with this Bezier curve in the past, I wondered why it stopped doing so.
I'm still learning the ins and outs of modeling in SU, so if a plugin gives me a nice result and saves me a few modeling steps, it is very welcome.