NURBS

[Davide]

Nurbs are finally supported in VW9, but how do you really create a Nurb surface that is not just the result of extruding a nurb curve along another? Nurbs would be incredibly useful if there was a sort of skin tool(see Microstation '95!), where the user creates 3d curves representing sections of the shape and then a tool would create a NURB surface (any order) passing thru them. That way you can create free form objects, cars, people etc.

What's the point of having just Nurbs curves?

I can convert a polygon based model to Nurb, but that doesn't allow me to create something organic with constantly variable sections.

[Guest]

You have to have basic nurbs functionality before you can have advanced nurbs functionality. VW9 introduced the basics that can be used to build on for the future. For now, you can create nurbs surfaces with vectorscript.

[Matthew Giampapa]

VectorWorks 9 is just the beginning of much more extensive NURBS support.

If you have any VectorScript questions, you can write to vs_support@nemetschek.net to get help. Also, there is a large number of VectorScript resources available on our website. (http://www.nemetschek.net/support/custom/index.html)

There are a large number of new things you will be able to do in VectorWorks 10, which will have much more developed NURBS capabilities. Right now we feel that our current level of NURBS support is a valuable addition to the program. (Hey, who can say they don't actually love the extrude along path tool?)

Matthew Giampapa

Technical Support

quote:

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Originally posted by Davide:

Nurbs are finally supported in VW9, but how do you really create a Nurb surface that is not just the result of extruding a nurb curve along another? Nurbs would be incredibly useful if there was a sort of skin tool(see Microstation '95!), where the user creates 3d curves representing sections of the shape and then a tool would create a NURB surface (any order) passing thru them. That way you can create free form objects, cars, people etc.

What's the point of having just Nurbs curves?

I can convert a polygon based model to Nurb, but that doesn't allow me to create something organic with constantly variable sections.

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[MikeB]

Matthew,

Unfortunately, I for one can say I do not love the extrude along path tool. I can hardly ever get it to work properly. 75% of the time I get an invalid path or object message on both mac's and pc's. Now I tested this and i'm talking about really simple polygons for both objects. I've seen some other posts about this. I am really excited about nurbs surfaces but they just don't do much for me in 9.

So I guess I love the idea, but I just can't get it to work. (I do understand this could be user error but its fairly consistant on different platforms and different objects.)(on second thought the common denominator is me I suppose ;^)

[Matthew Giampapa]

Mike,

The 9.5 code for this is much more robust. We are always looking for instances when out code will break so we can add it to our testing package. If you have an insance that is not working email it to tech@nemetschek.net, and put attention Matt in the subject and I will test it against the current fixes we have implemented. If it does not pass it will be sent to engineering where we will attempt to generalize the problem and fix the code. In past cases we have usually had a fix internally as soon as the next day.

The best results can be had when you define a NURBS path yourself. When using other types of objects to create a path they are internally converted to NURBS paths which due to the nature of the conversion induce control points which can cause problems.

9.5 will convert the objects differently, but we can not always think up everything a user will send at it. If you have examples we would really like to see them.

Matthew Giampapa

Technical Support

quote:

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Originally posted by MikeB:

Matthew,

Unfortunately, I for one can say I do not love the extrude along path tool. I can hardly ever get it to work properly. 75% of the time I get an invalid path or object message on both mac's and pc's. Now I tested this and i'm talking about really simple polygons for both objects. I've seen some other posts about this. I am really excited about nurbs surfaces but they just don't do much for me in 9.

So I guess I love the idea, but I just can't get it to work. (I do understand this could be user error but its fairly consistant on different platforms and different objects.)(on second thought the common denominator is me I suppose ;^)

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