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Rotate object/polygon to plane?


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I am working with a building facade that has a series of 3d polygons and extruded polygons all at different planes forming a morphing structure.

Now I am trying to take all these 3d polygons and lay them flat on the same plane (in order to view them all as if they were laid out flat on a shared plane). For example if the structure was a simpler cube made of 6 separate polygons is there a way I could lay those polygons out and see the 6 identical faces of the cube in one plane?

My form is quite more complicated so rotating each polygon separately would be a nightmare since it would not just be a 90 degree rotation in one plane but a series of rotation in several planes.

Is there a tool in vectorworks 2012 to do this?

Edited by akoudlai
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The planar editing tools arent available (as yet?)...I've designed concrete forms and roofs by projecting an optimal grid (Morphing structure are non linear) using 3D vectors (Polygons with 6DOF) Good luck with the math... VW could certainly provide and elegant and simple graphical solution.

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rhinocerous autocad and revit all have tools for this. in rhino its called smash and in autodesk products its part of the output for laser cutting setup... I was hoping VW would have a quick function I could use to do this to the pieces I need to lay flat. but doing it one piece by one piece and figuring out the math would be an absolute nightmare.

Does anyone know a VW way to do this?

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Have you tried the Unfold Surface command in Model>3d PowerPack? It only works on NURBS surfaces, so make a copy of the surface (s) and convert to NURBS then run the tool. For example a cylinder or extruded circle converts to a group of 3 NURBS surfaces. Enter the group, select all, run the command - result is two circles and a rectangle on the layer plane. They may overlap, so may have to be rearranged.

Wagner Unfold is a 3rd party plugin from VW2009 or VW2010, which works better (my opinion). I think at VectorDepot, but I can't find it now. Don't know if it is updated for VW2011 or 2012.

Give unfold it a try

-B

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Not an automated way, but you could:

1. Use the Set Working Plane tool to select each face.

2. Click the Look at Working Plane Button in the Working Planes Palette

3. Draw a polygon around the object of interest and leave it selected.

4. Create a Viewport. The polygon will be used as the crop object.

If you put all of the viewports on the same layer you should be able to generate what you are looking for fairly rapidly.

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Editing earlier post here for accuracy - Result of unfolding a cylinder (converted to NURBS) is 3 polylines - two of them look like circles, the other is a poly shaped like a rectangle.

Unfolding a cube (converted to NURBS) results in 6 rectangular polylines on the layer plane. These polys have same native dims as the faces of the cube. This sounds like what the orig post asks for.

Unfortunately, we cannot easily derive which poly represents which face and whether view represents inside of cube or outside. Pat's Viewport method can keep this orientation info in order.

-B

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I tried to use the convert to nurbs followed by unfold surfaces... However, the according to the error I get when I try to unfold the nurbs surface I created from the 3d polygon:

"this command unfolds developable nurbs surfaces or CSG objects representing developable surfaces. A developable surface is a surface that is curved only in one dimension (eg the curved surface of a cylinder)"

So it seems as if this method will not work unless if I am doing something incorrectly.

As for the creating viewports method, I need to eventually export all the polygons aligned on one plane as a dwg in order to laser cut it so using viewports will not work for that..

any help?? anyone??

there has to be a way to align all these 3d polygons from their varied original planes onto one shared plane.

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If not proprietary, post a screen shot of the objects or facade you are working with.

Or paste some of the objects into a new file and post that here. Click the Switch to Full Reply Screen button and use the File Manager.

Try paste and unfold some of the shapes in a new file just to get the hang of it.

Note that Convert to NURBS creates a group. The Unfold command will not unfold the group, and will return the error you report.

The NURBS surfaces are inside the group.

Enter the group with dbl click or cmd[

Then Select All and confirm that it's all NURBS surfaces. If not, find the unconverted objects and convert them. Ungroup if necessary.

When Select All shows only NURBS surfaces, invoke the Unfold Command.

Compound curving surfaces (saddles, ovoids, etc) are not developable. They require stretching or compressing if forming from flat material, & will not unfold.

The original post mentions laser cutting which would likely limit the project to perimeter cuts on flat material. Therefore Unfold should work.

Yes, The Align Plane Tool could work for for this, but one 3d poly at a time. (Unfold is faster). In my workspace, the Align Plane tool is nested with the Set Working Plane tool in the 3d Modeling set. Read about it in VW help.

-B

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Unfold sounds like the perfect solution.

If you follow Benson's method you can select and assign a unique color to each surface, select all , duplicate, Unfold. Now you have a color key to your unfolded planes.

I would try working on a subset of the whole or a trial object or just a selection of the nurbs surfaces to establish the workflow. This way you can isolate any small error which may be causing a failure.

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I experimented a bit with your file. The problem is when you select everything and convert to NURBS, its creating NURBS curves from the 3D polygons not NURBS surfaces (not sure why that is, seems like a bug to me to convert a poly "surface" to a NURBS curve). Try this -

- select each individual strip of your object, one at a time, and choose Model>Add Solids. It will work for all of the strips but one which seems to have a hidden geometry issue of some sort.

- Select each individual strip and choose Modify>Convert>Convert to NURBS. Each strip will convert to a group of NURBS surfaces which will now unfold.

- As for the one strip that won't Add together, you can convert them individually (Modify>Convert>Convert to NURBS as a group, then select each NURBS curve and choose Model>Create Surface from Curves). After that, they can be unfolded like the others.

Unfortunately they don't unfold into a beautiful connected pattern, but rather a scattered group of shapes. From experience unwrapping complicated crystal shapes involves a lot of manual alignment to get a foldable flat pattern.

You might have better luck with something like Rhino or Touchcad if you need to do a lot of these.

Kevin

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So I tried to use your first method and it it still did not work for any of the strips. however when I used your second method it did work. Nonetheless it would be too tedious to do this project one 3d polygon at a time since the file I posted is only a small fraction of the surfaces to be unfolded. So I am going to have someone try this in rhino and send back a file. hopefully nothing get corrupted or changed in the process of all the reformatting this file is going to go through.

It would really be nice if VW had an elegant solution for this type of situation. I cannot be the first person to run into this issue since I would imagine that any laser cutting software would require a 2d drawing to base its cuts on. Nemetschek has to take into consideration the amount of users that must be building models of designs with these types of geometries.

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While VW is sure to have a workflow that can do what you want. All the above suggestions look time consuming, and prehaps prone to error. If you have to change or alter your facade for any reason, you are up for MANY hours of repeat work.

If you have a complex building geometry and know of CAD packages that automate what you want, then I suggest you consider using the software that best suits your project.

When you consider the time it will take you to establish a work flow that does what you want. Figure out the QA procedure that ensure your unfolded complex geometry will come togetaher on site. Then use your workflow to generate all the drawings, the difference in price between VW and the others you mention may pay for itself.

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