Biplab

There is no direct functionality for this. An work around may be to use the contour tool to produce hatches.

This has been fixed for a later release.

In the NURBS curve Properties dialog (not the Object Info Palette), there is a length field that tells you the length. But I think there was a bug in VW11.0 on Mac - and length field may not be showing anything - I may be wrong. On Windows it works. However you can change 3D conversion resolution to very high or high, convert copy to lines on the NURBS curve, unfroup, select all, compose the lines into a polygon and see the perimeter value of the polygon on the object info palette.

3ds import/export is very much in our radar screen.

SAT is actually the format for ACIS-based modelers e.g. FormZ, Inventor, CadKey etc. Parasolid's format is X_T - which we do not have support yet but may be sometime in the future we will have it.

Select each of the NURBS surfaces and turn on the show normal flag in the object info palette. Make sure that the normal of the two surfaces are pointing in the same general direction - otherwise use Reverse Normal from OIP to achieve that.

Line as a profile in extrude along path is in general supported. It may be that the orientation of the line wrt the path that's causing the problem. Try concverting the line to NURBS curve and see if that helps.

Sorry, this is a limitation in the package. In some cases, you might get better result by using loft with a single rail (2nd mode of the loft tool) - select the path as a rail and then the profile.

It may be that the criterion for detecting discontinuity on a surface is different in VW from that in Rhino. So a surface may appear continuous and smooth in Rhino and the same surface may appear segmented and divided into several sub-surfaces in VW. Is this what you are seeing. May be you can send me the IGES file so that I can take a look.

VW 10.5 does import/export of IGES.

This is not currently supported, but I will make an entry for this in thw wish list. This can be easily added to the system.

This is not a message that says that the operation failed. This is an alert message which says that there were some illegal objects (example: light object) in your selection e.g. if you did a select all before doing Add Solids - the system deselects the objects for which Add Solids is meaningless. What you should do is issue the Add Solids command again - and it should work.

Hi Tim, Are you thinking something like what the Split Tool's Split by Line mode does? Biplab

Tom's problem is on our bug list and has been reported by several other users. We are looking into it. On the question of Protrusion tool producing a solid addition of a NURBS surface and a tapered extrude - because this toolof adds something to an existing object, and the object that is added is tapered extrude. One should remember that VectorWorks does not differentiate between surfaces and solids - surfaces can participate in most of the things that solids do - and the surface-solid interactions are one of the strong points.

I am planning for the 3D enhancements for the next release. I keep on getting private mails about wishes and workflow improvements. Also we have discussed some of those in this forum. Please post your top 5 wishes or annoyances on 3D Power pack functionality in reply to this message. Thanks.

The problem with matching surfaces is that - the surfaces need to be untrimmed surfaces. You can find out whether a surface is untrimmed or trimmed - by pressing the unTrim button in the OIP of a NURBS surface - and see of the surface shape changes. If your surfaces are untrimmed (or naturally bound as they are called in math) - and they still do not match, please send the file to me. Send me at biplab@nemetschek.net

In VW11 we support stand alone ACIS SAT import/export. But the other thing that is improved now is that ACIS SOLIDS embedded within the DXF file will no longer be polygonal when imported into VW - they will be NURBS based solids.

www.3dpowerpack.com

Model->Surface from curves is the one to create surface from a curve network. It also does surface from boundary curves, closed planar curves etc. We didn't want to have a large number of commands to create NURBS surfaces.

Tom, We do thcikening of surface - using the Shell tool - which uses offset surface. --Biplab

I meant you can "Add" all the logs together in the above message.

You can all the logs together and then subtract the cube from the solid addition. The success of the solid addition may be based upon how he logs are placed wrt each other - are they touching?

This is a display problem and should not affect the actual accuracy of the model that is stored in the file. The internal data should be fine.

You can use the Tool-->Compose command to connect up lines and arcs into a single polyline - and extrude that.

Hi Tom, It would be helpful for us to know the list of features that you think are missing in VW when compared to Rhino. Thanks. --Biplab