Skewed 3D Surfaces into Solid?

[Asemblance]

Hi All,

 

I'm trying to create a solid from two triangles on skewed planes (screenshot below). I'm relatively new to the freeform modelling side of vwx so I'm hoping theres something obvious I'm missing. Could anybody please advise how to approach this?

 

As a secondary question, I tried converting both to NURBS curves and lofting but this fails. Can somebody explain to me what the limitations are on lofting that are stopping me from doing this? Is it due to the skewed planes?

 

 

Thanks in Advance,

A

[markdd]

It's really easy to do.

• Draw the triangles on whatever planes you need
• Convert to Nurbs curves. (I tend to ungroup the result)
• Loft Surface tool from the 3D tools set (first mode)
• Select each triangle in turn
• Press the Check mark or Return
• Check the option to Create Solid.

If you have problems with this then it is worth checking that both your triangles have the same direction ((Check mark in the OIP). 

All should be well. Come back if you have any questions.

Edited July 20, 2018 by markdd

[zoomer]

Oh there are so many ways in VW.

 

1.

You could just extrude the lower triangle with a bit of extra height

Offset Tool to extend the upper triangle a bit

Extrude this larger upper triangle

and do a Solid Subtraction by cutting the lower extrude by the upper Extrude.

 

2.

You could extrude the lower triangle with a bit of extra height

use the Taper Face Tool to rotate the top face over the 3 axes to align by

snapping to the corners of the upper triangle as a reference.

 

to be continued ....

 

[Kevin McAllister]

2 hours ago, Asemblance said:

As a secondary question, I tried converting both to NURBS curves and lofting but this fails. Can somebody explain to me what the limitations are on lofting that are stopping me from doing this? Is it due to the skewed planes?

 

I think lofting would be the easiest in this situation and it should work with your two triangles. Things I would check if its failing -

• make sure they didn't get grouped in the conversion to NURBS curves.
• confirm the original polygons/polylines were closed shapes.
• select one of the NURBS curves and in the OIP click the "Show Direction" checkbox. Confirm that both shapes are going in the same direction. If one is flipped, use the "Reverse Direction" button in the OIP to switch it. (This is the most likely problem.)
• Use the first mode of the Loft tool. Select your two shapes at correlating points/places. When the Loft dialog opens, make sure the "Create Solid" checkbox is checked. Click the preview button to see if there are any issues (this is where you might see direction issues, it will look like the shape is twisted).

An alternate method is to do it manually. Convert the NURBS curves to surfaces (Command Option K), manually draw the connecting surfaces using the NURBS Curve tool and also converting those curves to surfaces. With all your surfaces select Model>3d Powerpack>Stitch and Trim Surfaces.

 

 If you're still having issues, feel free to upload a file and we can take a look.

 

Kevin

 

[Asemblance]

Thanks all.

 

@zoomer, I ended up doing option 2 as your recommendation above which produced a nice 'clean' result. I need to familiarise myself more with this style of modelling..

 

@Kevin McAllister & @markdd - I then tried to get the lofting approach to work, and was exactly as you suspected! Required reversing direction on one of the NURBS curves.

 

I'm glad you also mentioned the manual method, as that feels like its going to come in useful down the line if struggling with some complex geometry or imports..

Edited July 20, 2018 by Asemblance