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Improvements in subdivisions


Kaare Baekgaard

Question

I have just used two days to model a chair using subdivisions.

The improvements in VW 2017 are massive.

As one of the few remaining general purpose users of VW, I often feel snubbed by new releases, since many basic drawing tools have not been improved in more than a decade.

But with this release, subdivision has become truly workable

It is great, that I can change meshes into subdivisions.

I wish, I could go the opposite way as well:

By clicking in the OIP, I would like to be able to change the viewing mode of any subdivision, so that I would only see the cage.

Then, if I changed it into a mesh, I would only get the geometry of that cage.

Ideally I would then be able to go back and forth between mesh and subdivision in order to refine the design.

So the question is: Can I get that?

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Wouldn't such a repeated back and forth conversion between subdivision and mesh negatively impact one or the other.

E.g. bezier curves can be used to mimick polygons/polylines but the other way around is not so easy as it may take lots of nodes to even get close to a complex bezier curve. Or the accuracy of the curve is affected after conversion to polyline.

Not having used subdivisions that much yet as v1 was a bit too limited for some things this is something I'd like to know as I do often end up with meshes when importing 3D dwg files so knowing the impact of conversions would be nice.

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36 minutes ago, Art V said:

Wouldn't such a repeated back and forth conversion between subdivision and mesh negatively impact one or the other.

E.g. bezier curves can be used to mimick polygons/polylines but the other way around is not so easy as it may take lots of nodes to even get close to a complex bezier curve. Or the accuracy of the curve is affected after conversion to polyline.

Not having used subdivisions that much yet as v1 was a bit too limited for some things this is something I'd like to know as I do often end up with meshes when importing 3D dwg files so knowing the impact of conversions would be nice.

No, I believe, that they could be made entirely compatible. The cage of a subdivision resembles a mesh in every way. If I create a mesh which is identical to a cage in a native subdivision – and then change that mesh into a subdivision, the result would be identical to the native subdivision.

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13 minutes ago, Kaare Baekgaard said:

No, I believe, that they could be made entirely compatible. The cage of a subdivision resembles a mesh in every way. If I create a mesh which is identical to a cage in a native subdivision – and then change that mesh into a subdivision, the result would be identical to the native subdivision.

Thanks for the info, that is good to know.

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1 hour ago, Jonathan Pickup said:

My favourite upgrade to the subdivision tool is the mirror mode. It makes it so fast to create something like a chair. 

It is nice, but actually I find it easier to just mirror the half chair using the normal mirror tool and add-solid the two halves.

My favorite by far is the bridge tool. I can now delete any part of the geometry and then built new geometry using the extend edge mode and the bridge mode. It has a minor bug or two, but in general it is difficult for me to get my hands down.

Edited by Kaare Baekgaard
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1 hour ago, JimW said:

To go from Mesh > Subdivision it's Modify > Convert > Convert to Subdivision

To go from Subdivision > Mesh it's Modify > Ungroup

Thanks Jim, but I may not have been sufficiently clear on this:

From mesh to subdivision works perfectly.

From subdivision to mesh is a oneway street. I need the cage of the subdivision, not the resulting geometry – for obvious reasons.

That is the wish.

Edited by Kaare Baekgaard
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56 minutes ago, JimW said:

If you first do a right click on the subdiv with the Edit Subdivision tool, then Crease All Edges, that should make the geometry adhere strictly to the cage, then if you ungroup it should give you a mesh that fits the cage dimensions exactly, unless I'm missing your core need.

Thanks again, jim.

The geometry may adhere to the cage, but the complexity of the mesh will be many times bigger, so I cannot reverse the proces.

The core need is compatibility.

I want to start a subdivision in VW. Convert it into its mesh cage. Make adjustments to the cage mesh, that cannot easily be done in a subdivisions. Export the cage mesh into Strata 3D (or Cinema 4D or Blender) to do some detailing like seams or button depressions on a chair. Import the cage mesh back into VW and convert it into a new, more refined subdivision, that will be used in solid operations. Etcetera.

If I can go back and forth freely without loss of information, I can kiss the stars.

I want to kiss the stars.

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I had only one problem.
I initally created the Extrude on an active unwanted Class that was set to black fill.
I corrected this immediately in the OIP for that Extrude.
Now I converted that extrude to a SubD.

But forgot to switch the active Class before conversion.
So if the SubD is just selected it looked as expected,

but when in SubD Edit Mode, the former Extrude Geometry switched back to black,
Although I also set the SubD on the other Class.
And that way I can't see my (black) SubD Cage.

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