View Cage in subdivisions

[Kaare Baekgaard]

I am getting some experience with subdivisions and it has already found its way into a couple of product designs.

At this moment am using subdivision to model a regular chair. I have the end result in sight, but I have had to redo the crucial part a few time to establish the right order of events.

I have a wish, that I hope can be granted: It is my understanding that the cage of the subdivision is the 'actual' geometry – and that the geometry, that I see is really the product of some sort of calculation. I wish, I could tick some box in the OIP to see only the cage – with rendered surfaces if I am in a rendering mode.

The reason for this wish is, that it is very hard on a computer monitor to judge whether a twisted and bent subdivision surface is fair and harmonic to look at in real life. The cage actually gives a better clue than the surface itself.

So I wish I could see an isolated rendition of the cage – also when the subdivision object is deselected – and that I could snap to the points and lines of cage.

Edited January 16, 2016 by Kaare Baekgaard

[PVA - Admin]

Adding this to an existing request, there are a few suggestions for additional view modes for subdivisions but adding options to make the cage snap-able and always visible is a frequent one.

[Kaare Baekgaard]

Hi Jim

The chair is beginning to look good, but I have had to restart the same subdivision 15-20 times from scratch to get it right. One reason for this is, that there is no tool that does the opposite of the 'edge split tool'.

I sure wish, there were, because it would allow for a lot more trial and error.

This great new tool would remove a ring of cage edges, where the edge split tool adds one.

Does that make sense to you?

[PVA - Admin]

I had the same experience. Undo was only able to handle it since this was the ONLY object in the document I was working on, but isnt viable when you're coming back to a subdiv to make changes and then working either elsewhere in the document or on other subdivs.

I have requests in for Bridging, Stitching, Mirrioring and a few other modes that will make working with Subdivs a lot nicer.

Also, requested the ability to convert existing solids into subdivs. This will take away a lot of the work, since its usually faster to model up the base shape with simple solids first, then add the details via the subdiv controls.