UPDATE April 2021
Hi Everyone. I am happy to announce that mind.sight.studios is going to be taking over development of SketchyFFD effective immediately. Please see this thread by Dale here for more information:
https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=73658
And I'd like to thank TIG for helping keep SketchyFFD updated the last few years.
Chris
[Original Post below]
[NOTE: These instructions are out of date. Please see this thread for updates]
https://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=73658
Instructions: (somewhat out of date. see updates for changes)
-Create a group with all the geometry you wish to deform. This group should contain just faces and/or lines.
-Right click the group and select one of the options in the FFD submenu. Either 2x2 or 3x3 or NxN FFD. Depending on the size of the model it could take a while (seconds I hope). At the end you should see a new group containing nothing but control points
-Open the control point group and move the control points as you wish. The object should deform as you move the points. NOTE: it can take a long time for complex models. Look at the status bar in the lower left to see the status of the deformation.
Bugs and limitations:
-BUG. If you start a FFD and the control points don't match the object you need to explode and regroup the object. Then try the FFD again.
-Only one FFD at a time. The script uses a few globals for speed.
-Only works on geometry in a group and only one layer deep.
-Sometimes hidden edges don't move right. Dont know why. Might be a bug in Sketchup.
Update Feb 12. New version:
-Support for NxN deforms.
-Mesh automatically when you move control points.
-Added status text progress when it is weighing and deforming the mesh.
Update Mar 21.
-Moved all FFD right click menu items to a sub menu.
-Fixed a bug that forced you to have a least 2 control point in each direction. You can now have do 2D grids. IE. 1x4x3.
-Added an option to create a NxN 2d patch. A grid with a control point at each intersection.
Updated May 9 2008
-Added ability to lock edges in the mesh so they don't move during FFD. Select edges then right click->FFD->Lock edges.
-Added an option to subdivide the mesh when doing a NxN deformation.
Updated Aug 24 2009
-Optimized the initial weighting to be about 3x faster. Idea by Stefan.
Updated 20110810 by TIG
-Code is now inside a module, all $ variables now @@ or @ types, the flaky observer code is fixed.
Updated 20130203 by TIG
- Recently reported NxN issues with NaN [0.0/0.0] & Infinity [1.0/0.0] fixed, which occurred when selected group was 2d & NxN height=1
and the NxN dialog now remembers the last used values that session for the NxN lattice [width, depth, height, subdivide]...