Biplab

Try split by point mode (first mode) of the split tool - it does split a surface along an isparametric line. But it probably does split in both u and v directions.

When you loft with general curve shapes, one of the things that is done (and I think this is true for other packages too e.g. Rhino) is to make all the curves compatible. What this means is that the curves are manipulated internally such that they all have the same number of "knots" at the same parameter value. This increases the number of knots and consequently the control points of the curves before they are submitted for actual lofting. Hence the increase in the number of control points. Making curves compatible provides a much better-shaped interpolated surface.

I think you cannot combine discontinuous surfaces (sharp corner between surfaces in your picture) using the connect/combine tool.

If you up your 3D conversion resolution from the preferences, you should see it as a continuous curve.

Well, Add Vertex from the Object Info Pallette would allow you to add a vertex in the middle of the current vertex and the next vertex. But then you would still need to change the coordinates in mist cases I would think.

There is a blend option in the dual mode (2nd mode) of connect/combine tool. But you have no control over the radius of the blend.

Once you open the file in BBEdit, try File->Save As, there is an Options button in the dialog that is presented, press this button to see the Save options - one of the Save options is the Line Break - which can be changed from DOS to Macintosh.

If these files are coming from PC - you need to open these up in BBEDIT (which you can doenload for free), open this file, chnage the line terminator type from DOS to MAC and save that. You should then be able to open these files.

If you want slanted shapes there is Tapered Extrude that you can use too.

Are you running VectorWorks on Mac?

Use the shell tool to thicken a surface.

nic, You have stumbled upon one of the shortcomings of the loft tool. The center of the semi-circle is not recognized by the loft tool as one of the "corners" and hence this problem. But don't worry, there are other ways to do the same. Do it using 2 steps or rather 2 lofts. I am assuming that you are lofting between the straight portion of the semi-circle and two sides of the rectangle and another loft between the circular portion of the semi-circle and two other sides of the rectangle. If so, create polygons or split the rectangle. Similarly split the semi-circle or create the line joining the ends of the semi-circle and the sem-circle separately. And do two lofts with 2 sets of open curves. After lofting you can add them together (using Add Solid) if you need to. You can also cap them using various methods - create planar caps or create surface from curves (after extracting the curves from the added solid). Hope this helps. Biplab

Yes, please go ahead and send it to me. Thanks.

Volumes and surface area can be obtained using worksheets or writing a VS function for it. See the Worksheets portion of the manula - where it mentions how to obtain these properties. If it is a solid operation (addition, subtraction, intersection, section, shell, fillet, chamfer etc)- you can type in the cell: = Volume(t = solidcsg)

Yes, there will be gaps if you just reshape the interior points of surfaces - this is because the surface that you are reshaping is a trimmed NURBS surface and after reshaping the surface, the trim curves are mapped to the new surface parameterization - resulting in a gap. I think the circus tent was created using loft tool - where the surfaces were created by interpolating a bunch of tent x-sections - with a point x-section at the top end.

Arrows are the only way to select the vertices for weight change. The only place there is graphical way to select vertices is in the 3D Reshape tool.

I have seen circus tents created using loft tool in the past - Julian Carr had created a tent with 4 internal poles. The result is a bunch of NURBS surfaces. Most of the work in this is in creating the cross-section curves for the lofts. If you have 8 poles - you probably need to use the loft tool 8 times and each loft should have a 3D locus point (corresponding to the end of each pole) as the end of x-section curves.

In 9.5.1 and 9.5.2, the inside or outside shell used to be determined by the user input, -ve thickness for inside and +ve thickness for outside. In 10.0 and onwards, there are now two radio buttons, inside and outside and the thickness should always be +ve (as noted in the dialog help text when you hover over the thickness field). So, if you click on the proper radio button (inside or outside) and type in a +ve thickness, you should see the face get selected. We may need to update the tutorials with this change. Thanks for pointing this out.

I have found and fixed the bug in thickening a hemispherical surface. It would be available in an upcoming release.

Shell Solid process is this: If you have a solid and you select a face on the solid - the program offsets every face other than the face you selected by the shell thickness, but keeps the selected face in place. The program then subtracts the solid created by the above procedure from the original solid to create a shelled solid. In case of a hemisphere, you select the face you want to open up (the planar face or the hemi-spherical face0 and shell it. If you convert the hemi-sphere to NURBS - and ungroup - you get two separate NURBS surfaces. Now when you select a SINGLE NURBS Surface, the Shell Solid Tool works differently - it basically thickens the surface to create a Shell. In this case, if you select the hemi-spherical NURBS surface, it should thcikne it - but the result would be a little different. Because since there is no connection between the hemi-spherical surface and the planar surface (which it does when it is a solid hemi-sphere), the shape you would get is different. In any case, it should work using surface too - if it does not - it's a bug - I will investigate and let you know. Thanks.

VectorWorks 10.0 supports IGES import. Right now this is the only way you can transfer data from other packages for interesting shapes.

After creating the planar cap(s) - you need to add them to the solids on which you created the caps - using add solids. Once you do that for both the ball room sections, the intersect should work. If that does not - please submit it as a bug.

Why are you converting to NURBS and ungrouping? The shell tool works directly on spheres and hemi-spheres. For a hemisphere select the face you want to open up and input a reasonable thickness (less than the radius if you are going inside). For sphere the process is the same.

The multi-view and viewport issues are two separate issues - but they are very much in our radar screen.

Not to steal Katie's thunder... I think I have seen this create planar caps situation before. I think what you did was extrude a bunch of individual lines or arcs or curves in general - rather than a polygon or a polyline. If you ungroup your extrude - you would probably get a bunch of individual extrudes. Add these together using Add Solids and do Create planar Caps on the resultant solid.