[Plugin][WIP][OpenSource] Bezier Surface

zingis · 11 Dec 2012, 12:08

nice! good luck and congrats on this amazing idea

Rich O Brien · 13 Dec 2012, 15:56

You're gonna love this.....

cotty · 13 Dec 2012, 16:09

@rich o brien said:

You're gonna love this.....

YES!^5

mitcorb · 13 Dec 2012, 23:53

Watching that video, I was moved to tears. Perhaps it was the music. Perhaps it is the longing.
I am definitely impressed both by the Plugin and the high quality video.

iichiversii · 14 Dec 2012, 00:15

I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want, I want................ need I say more

thomthom · 14 Dec 2012, 09:16

Hope to show off more fun stuff once I've completed the rewrite of the core needed to implement the next set of tools and features. Ran into a little roadblock.

I feel quite bad for having teased people with this for two years!

cotty · 14 Dec 2012, 09:49

@thomthom said:

I feel quite bad for having teased people with this for two years!

In German we say "Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude."
No idea if the google translation "Anticipation is half the fun." make sense?!

May the force be with you...

thomthom · 14 Dec 2012, 10:05

At some point the anticipation isn't fun any more...

jolran · 14 Dec 2012, 10:41

Wow, performance seems very quick.
May I ask, is it all Ruby?

thomthom · 14 Dec 2012, 11:13

@jolran said:

Wow, performance seems very quick.
May I ask, is it all Ruby?

At the moment, yes. Though I expect that eventually some will need to be ported to C - like I did with Vertex Tools. But the biggest bottleneck is SketchUp itself - in that adding geometry gets slower the more geometry is already in the model.

iichiversii · 14 Dec 2012, 16:30

Take your time TT, looking forward to the release, it will be an addition to vertex tools, keep up the great work

jolran · 14 Dec 2012, 19:14

@unknownuser said:

But the biggest bottleneck is SketchUp itself - in that adding geometry gets slower the more geometry is already in the model

You mean the total amount of edges-faces in model or the subdividing procedure?

But still, all Ruby you say. That looks like you got some nice realtime response, thought you pulled some C extension on it already.

Hope you find time to do some more tutorials on C-extensions later then

cuttingedge · 14 Dec 2012, 20:53

This should be at the very core of Sketchup's future release.. Amazing tool. Your'e brilliant Thomas!..I believe you could author a toolset like T-spline!

thomthom · 15 Dec 2012, 11:50

@jolran said:

You mean the total amount of edges-faces in model or the subdividing procedure?

Yea, as SketchUp adds geometry it will check the added geometry for intersections and merging. Meaning that for every entity you add it will loop over every other entity. So it's not even a linear degradation of performance - it's just get horribly slow quickly.

@jolran said:

But still, all Ruby you say. That looks like you got some nice realtime response, thought you pulled some C extension on it already.

At the moment it's ok for the tests I do. I mean, it's not the biggest test models because I haven't made the tools to create anything useful. But once the tools are taking into place I need to focus on performance and the calculation of the bezier curves will most likely need to be ported to C.
At the moment I reduce the subdivisions when the tools are editing the mesh, for a faster response. But I might try to just draw virtual mesh with OpenGL draw commands, like I played around with in my Catmull-clart subdivision experiment: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=333&t=47691&p=427968#p427968
Problem with that is there is no shading of the polygons, so you lose some feeling of the surface since it's just flat shading. Not sure how to do that in the end - kindof hopes for some amazing new feature in SketchUp that will make this easier.

@jolran said:

Hope you find time to do some more tutorials on C-extensions later then

I have some projects that need C Extensions, and usually when I venture off into unknown territories I need to write stuff down so I remember it. Tutorials, guides or blog posts are great for this. It forces you to think about what you think you know.

thomthom · 15 Dec 2012, 11:51

@cuttingedge said:

I believe you could author a toolset like T-spline!

I don't know about that, least not yet. I'm struggling with the math of plain ol' bezier patches. T-Splines is some very clever stuff.

jchau2007 · 26 Mar 2013, 22:45

TT,
Please update us as to where you are at with the Bezier Surfae tool development. We are all waiting on this one for a long time. Well let say you are crossing over two franchises, from Google to now Trimble.

thanks,
James

thomthom · 26 Mar 2013, 23:25

Yea, it's been taking a long time. It's been a much bigger project than I'd imagined.

I've done, what I think, is most of the core. I've begun to work on the tools to manipulate the meshes now.

dmatho · 30 Mar 2013, 19:47

Where's the "Super Like" button?

simon le bon · 30 Mar 2013, 23:28

@thomthom said:

Yea, it's been taking a long time. It's been a much bigger project than I'd imagined.

I've done, what I think, is most of the core. I've begun to work on the tools to manipulate the meshes now.

"Courage" Thom! this is going to be a wonderful tool, an indispensable one. May be your "Chef d'oeuvre".

++simon

thomthom · 31 Mar 2013, 11:11

I think it's best if I aim for a more basic first release - then do more continuous smaller updates evolving it.