Deform Tool not working VW 2023 SP7

[MGuilfoile]

Hi All,

I'm trying to create an acrylic fish that appears to be swimming. For some reason I keep getting a "deformation failed" error when I try to curve the extruded fish shown in the attached file. I'm using a working plane defined by selecting a face on the fish's back (which, in this test model, is 24" thick, but please just ignore that acrylic does not come in that thickness.) I want to have a symmetrical bend, so I'm highlighting the appropriate buttons in the deform tool. I've included an extruded rounded rectangle that I did successfully bend to show what I'm looking for. I did check that the original 2D fish drawing is a closed polyline (made with the Polyline Tool). Converting to a subdivision did not help. I had to convert to a mesh first and the resulting tangle of faces, edges, and vertices was unusable. The shape is too complicated to start with a subdivision primitive (or I'm not skilled enough in using them.)

Any advice on how to bend these fish would be helpful and much appreciated. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

MHBrown

Fish bending with Deform Tool.vwx

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

This sounds like fun.  Can you export in an earlier version,  VW2022.

[Gunther]

You could try using the Extract tool to extract the surface of your existing fish (or convert the original polyline into a NURBS Surface (Model > 3D Power Pack > Create Surface from Curves).  This leaves you with a NURBS surface.  Use the Deform Tool on the NURBS surface to reach the desired shape, then use the Shell Tool to add a thickness.

It appears there's an issue handling the current shape of the fish in your file with the Deform Tool and I will report to our engineers.

[Tom W.]

Not sure why but if I enter the Extrude + convert the Polyline to a Polygon (then simplify the poly to reduce the number of vertices), then I can perform the Deform on it without issue.

 

Note: the original Polyline had 105 vertices + the simplified Polygon had over 500 so it's not simply a case of there being too many vertices.

 

[Gunther]

Interesting, one of my original approaches was to enter the extrude and run Simplify Poly, using 0 as a value which reduced the vertices from 105 to 104, though still no luck with the Deform Tool.  Must have been the Polyline to Polygon conversion that helped restore some functionality? 

[Tom W.]

Yes it definitely seems that converting it to a Polygon was what got it working. When I ran Simplify Polys on the original Polyline it didn't have any effect which made me wonder whether the command only works on Polygons...? I have struggled in the past to get it to do anything. I always assumed it worked on both types of objects...?

[Tobias Kern]

Hi,

 

did you use "Poly Smoothing" on the original Polyline of the Extrude?

 

If i (re)set to "No Smoothing", I can bend the Extrude
with the Deform Tool.

 

If that's the problem with the Deform Tool, someone has to

make a Bug-Report or a Enhancement Report, if it is not possible

to bend smoothed Polylines/Polygons 

 

Greetings from Germany
Tobi

Edited October 16, 2023 by Tobias Kern

[Tobias Kern]

Hi,

 

okay, okay!

I took my time and made a report: VB 199975.

 

Greetings

Tobi

[Senthil Prabu]

12 minutes ago, Tobias Kern said:

Hi,

 

okay, okay!

I took my time and made a report: VB 199975.

 

Greetings

Tobi

Thanks for creating a VB, just after you, i also created one. (VB-199976). Anyway both were linked as duplicated.  Will look into that.

[Tobias Kern]

Thank you Senthil!

 

Hope you can find, what's causing the problem!

 

Greetings from Germany

Tobi

[MGuilfoile]

Many thanks to everyone! Converting 2D polyline shapes to polygons has long been a "go to" solution for me when something doesn't work in VW. They always have been much more well behaved than its polyline cousin. But I didn't want to go straight to the "polygon fix," thinking that it should work with polylines. That said, I like the idea of converting the 2D shape to a NURBS surface, bending that, and using the shell tool. My only reluctance is that is that I would be stringing together several operations that have a reputation for instability (though they are getting better). I have concerns about how well the resulting shape would accept texture maps and, more importantly, editing the map placement. I also may want to perform additional operations, fillets on the edges, for example. Perhaps once I get it created, I can play around with it.

Thanks again for the quick help!

MH Brown