Posts made by jgb

If one or both objects are either a group or component, there is no entity interference. The objects remain whole, and can be moved out of each others space.

The trick to moving components against other objects, without moving them into the other objects space, it to click on an edge, preferably an endpoint of the component to be moved.

Then move that component to the target, carefully. As you approach the target, the moved component will snap to the edge/point of the target. Release the component at that point.

You can then fine tune the position after that. But there is no restriction to move an object into the same space as some other object.

If you grab the component anywhere not on an edge or endpoint, there is no snap to, and it will move freely.

To move entities, groups or components INTO another group/comp's space box requires you to select it, clipboard copy it, then edit the group/comp you want it inside of and Paste-in-place. Then move it where you want it. Delete the one in the original position.

Part of your problem, and one that is difficult to control, is the number of segments in the top to bottom and left to right curves are not equal. Curviloft will create extra vertices on opposing curves to line up with vertices on the other side. Therefore you get extra segments on both sides.

You can minimize the problem if both opposing sides are true curves, not segmented lines, by making both curves contain the same number of segments. Select each curve and use Entity Info to adjust the number of segments.

But be aware, 3 sided perimeters will not loft smoothly to adjacent 4 side curves.
Your top drawing has a 3 sided perimeter (on the left) adjacent to a 4 sided perimeter, the way Curviloft will see it.

Even after I do this, I still usually have a lot of cleaning up to do by pulling intersection end points in the mesh to adjacent intersections to reduce the close spaced curves and other errors that creep in.

But Curviloft does 95++% of the work. Can't live without it.

Thanks. A bit tedious going that route, so I made the "Q" key a shortcut.

OK, I'm a bit dumb.....
Exactly how do I cycle back through the selections?
I mean what buttons do I press?
It is installed and active.

@fredo6 said:

Actually, I did not find a way to cover "Save, Load, Modify" with a single dialog box. If you have ideas, more than welcome.

A bug. I just fixed it. Strange nobody signaled it.

I will look at a combo as I gain experience with Animator.

I like descriptive names, so spaces are needed between words. I dislike dashes.
Others are more simplistic.

Fredo

I'm doing a step-by-step self tutorial based on the words and videos at the top of this thread.
I created a new SKP for this, and I will document my steps for potentially a detailed written tutorial.

I found a few things for you to look at........

1 - I suggest you combine Positioner Save and Positioner Load into a single icon function. They seem redundant to me at this point. Save takes you to Load, but can't come back. This makes name editing tedious.

2 - When first naming a position in SAVE if you hit the space bar, it all goes away. You then have to edit the position name in "manage". Space bar is OK when editing, just not initial naming.

More later.

NEW RELEASE: Curviloft v1.6a - 13 Aug 17

This is Sunday. Don't you ever take a day off???

@azeemuddin said:

Hi everyone.
Can anyone help me for this problem with sketchup curviloft.

I had the same problem.

The solution is to reinstall the latest version of Curviloft or any other Fredo6 tools, but ONLY AFTER the latest LibFredo is installed.

Thank you.
This old dog has difficulty learning new tricks.
I've tried many SU based animators over the years starting with SketchyPhysics (almost got the hang of it). Others left me wanting, others way too complex or plain unusable. I need a simple animator without the physics complications, so I hope, based on the quality and functions of your stuff, most of which I use daily (Curviloft in particular), this rendition of an SU animator will do the trick.

Fredo6, a favor please.

I just discovered your animation plugin, and went through this thread (quickly). It's installed but I have not yet played with it.

In the lead thread there is your usual documentation section and I well understand you have not (yet?) produced a .PDF guide. Instead you have references to 3 tutorials.

Could you please convert those references into clickable links?

Thanks
jgb

I've tried to select only faces that I know will contain the curve. That did not work either.

Pilou

That answer is NOT good enough. I get the very same problem 4 times out of 5 to the point I have stopped using that arc tool. IT DOES NOT WORK properly.

I have tried all sorts of variations, on a grouped surface, on a component surface, on a surface that was selected, on a surface with lines shown, lines not shown, endpoint to endpoint. Same result every time. Twisted lines in space, very few on the surface and otherwise useless.

When it works, it works wonders. When it doesn't it takes me about a 1/2 hour to create a curve the old fashioned way with intersecting extrusions.

I have complained about this several times in the past, nothing changed.

Please fix it!

@catramanthony said:

Hello all,

How do i manually fix nested instances or is there a plugin to help me?

If you have to show nested components (and/or groups), you need to take the "nested" component(s) out at the layer level. The 2 (or more) components can be on the same level, or individual levels depending on how you need to see them. But they cannot be inside any other component.

To do this, edit the main comp, select a nested comp and clipboard copy it. Then delete it.
Exit the edit and paste-in-place the copy. It is now outside the main comp. but on the same level and in exactly the same place. Do this until all nested comps. are outside the main comp.

They can now each be solids. If you group them all, the outside group will not be a solid, as all the comps are nested inside it.

Yes, load comp, (re)name it, save as. If the filename is there already, then replace.
Just did 85 of the important ones.

Ideally, there should be a choice to either - rename the comp same as filename or rename filename same as comp name.

But this works well if renaming just a few.

Thanks again.

Thanks SDMITCH

Got the .RB and put it in my /plugins folder. Started SU. The Comp list was unchanged (as expected) so I pulled in a few that had been renamed. And, yes, the comp name was changed to the file name.

I figured I had to re-save as and replace the old file, which worked.

Just 124 to go.........

Thanks Jim
I can wait... It's not urgent.

This has driven me nuts for a while, so when I went into the Components Directory to clean house a bit, it dawned on me why.

The component name in my Components drop down list is NOT the same as the components FILE name.

I organized all my components in the library with name prefixes so I can find one in the long list easier. But the name in the drop down list did not change. It retains the original component name and I cannot find a way to change it to match the new file name. Edit is greyed out as is properties.

Other than loading each and every one into SU, then renaming and "saving as" each one, I can't see a way to do this. That is a long tedious task.

Any ideas?

OK, Got it.
I've been playing with it for well over an hour. I needed to implement a few tricks I've learned with Curviloft over the years when it just won't skin what I see as a clean perimeter. I managed to skin all the curves and yes, I do see the "V" ridge and it is why I said above. I did a partial re-skinning of the main join of the 2 components, and that does eliminate the "V", but it is a laborious job and I simply do not have the time to finish it, so here is what I did......

1 - I separated the 2 halves so they do not interfere visually as I did the fix. Move just one comp on the red axis, so later it is easy to rejoin them.

2 - I tried skinning the main complex curve, but the perimeter was not true. So trick #1 is to explode the curves and delete the edges at the corners, but leaving 1 edge as a rejoin reference endpoint. I then rejoined the end points for an intact curve that Curviloft will accept. 4 corners - 8 lines deleted and redrawn.

3 - Curviloft skinned the side and top easily, but hung twice on the front curve.

4 - Trick #2 - when Curviloft craps out on a "perfect" perimeter, it is most often due to a very complex curve (and this IS a very complex curve) or where the curve is also part of an adjacent curve, I move/copy the perimeter away from the total object. I make sure the corners are clean, 2 lines only connected at endpoints. Curviloft skinned this. It took almost 10 minutes; I thought it hung again. When I brought the skins back together, sure enough, the "V" was there.

5 - I then softened and smoothed the join line and the "V" was less noticeable, but that was a visual fix only. A 3D printed part would have a ridge.

6 - I deleted the 2 faces and lines at the join from bottom to only about 1/2 way up as this was taking a long time to do. I had to do it with perspective off because the lines were so close to each other.

7 - I then drew a line ON RED AXIS from each horizontal line to the length of the gap. I then made an endpoint to endpoint line up the curve, softend and smoothed all lines, and effectively recreated the part of the surface deleted in #6 but it was now flat in respect to its mirrored half.
The "V" is essentially gone, as the join is flat.

![The "V" ridge is fixed 1/2 way up](/uploads/imported_attachments/hqZS_AutoSave_Front1.5fixSUCSU2015v1.jpg "The "V" ridge is fixed 1/2 way up")

What you see is SU interpreting the surface as it reflects the 2 halves.

That file is too big (18.5mb) to be attached for your reference. Even just the curved part is too big.

A cupola pointers......

The curves are way too fine, resulting in an unwieldy Curviloft surface. This skin has over 135000 entities alone. That is big. I know you want to 3D print a very smooth surface but take into account the resolution of the printer, and draw accordingly. The main problem you will face (NPI) is that Curviloft will almost double or even quadruple the line count from a perimeter because the endpoints of the opposing parts of a perimeter do not exactly align with each other.

If you need to join 2 curved surfaces at a common edge, try to make the faces at the edge meet the other side as close to straight as possible, or you will need to massage that join line to make it smooth. That is a tedious task, one I have to do all too often.

I hope this helps!

Maybe 0,045mm is too short to be recognized correctly,

Yes, that is a problem. I noticed it but forgot to say so in my reply. SU really does not like very short lines.

To get around this scale up the whole object 10 times and do the required functions on that, then scale back to 10% to return to original scale.

SU can display short lines, but has some difficulty working with them.

As Gilles said, save the SU-16 version as SU-15 and re-post it so I can look at it again.

I looked at your model; that's all I could do, is look at it.
One half of the model is composed of almost 2,000 UNCONNECTED very short edges. I could not even weld them into a curve. How you got a surface from them is a bit of a mystery.

However, the "V" you got is no mystery, as this happens to me where I flip a curved surface to form a mirrored other half. It also happens every time I create a large complex surface in several parts. I have to then massage the joins smooth.

The finite lines that form the curve at the "join" are not perfectly aligned in parallel to each other, and when you do the flip there is a small angle to the curve at the join, that appears as a ridge or "V" to the visual rendering. That angle at the "V" is a bit larger than the angles between the lines elsewhere on the curve, and as a result look larger.

To correct that, there are a few ways to do it.

If it was only for a visualization, then making the join lines between the 2 halves smooth and soft should make the join look smooth.

But you want to 3D Print this, so that probably will do nothing for the physical printed part. The "V" will form a bit of a ridge.

What you need to do is delete the surface triangles that form the join line, leaving a gap. But delete the end lines last. Why? Later down.
Explode both halves, then draw a line at the top and bottom corners, joining the 2 halves. You now have a valid curved perimeter for Curviloft to fill.
Explode the Curviloft group, and the "V" should disappear.

If the join is now too flat, then undo the Curviloft surface and the 2 lines you drew. Then undo the deletion of the 2 end lines that formed the "V". (That's why!)

Draw a line mid angled to the original lines and a line joining the 2 halves, then Curviloft that perimeter. This flattens the "V" but not quite flat, so the 3D printed part should not have a ridge.

Sorry, but I do not have the time to draw and annotate the fix.