Vectorworks, Inc Employee Stephan Moenninghoff Posted September 26, 2018 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted September 26, 2018 I had to create this shape today: A circle which morphs into a rectangle. The shape had to be absolutely symmetrical. Sounds easy but is it? Who can do it? 1 Quote Link to comment
Hans-Olav Posted September 26, 2018 Share Posted September 26, 2018 I tried multiple extrude and it didn´t look smoth Can you show us? Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted September 26, 2018 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted September 26, 2018 I have TWO possible theories, but I'll let others give it a shot first! 1 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted September 26, 2018 Share Posted September 26, 2018 (edited) Loft. two rails. Two nurbs surfaces. Make sure direction is same for both shapes. The green = nurbs in same direction, the pink: nurbs in differing directions… Shape.vwx Edited September 26, 2018 by mjm better screen shot of Image of result added 1 Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted September 26, 2018 Share Posted September 26, 2018 Here's my attempt. There's some variability without the knowing the exact proportions but I'm pretty sure I know how its done. It was the curves on the surface and the highlighted isocurves that gave it away. I don't think its done by lofting. I'll hold off posting the method for now. Kevin 1 Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Stephan Moenninghoff Posted September 26, 2018 Author Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted September 26, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Kevin McAllister said: Here's my attempt. There's some variability without the knowing the exact proportions but I'm pretty sure I know how its done. It was the curves on the surface and the highlighted isocurves that gave it away. I don't think its done by lofting. I'll hold off posting the method for now. You are very close, in fact it looks like you have cracked it. And yes, you are right, it's not done via a loft. The loft will not give you any precise control over the alignment of the curves. Is that a true circle at the bottom though? Edited September 26, 2018 by Stephan Moenninghoff Quote Link to comment
markdd Posted September 26, 2018 Share Posted September 26, 2018 (edited) Here's my attempt! Edited September 26, 2018 by markdd 1 Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Stephan Moenninghoff Posted September 27, 2018 Author Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted September 27, 2018 (edited) 8 hours ago, markdd said: Here's my attempt! OK, not bad. The top must be a rectangle though, not a square. If you can do that I would consider it solved. Edited September 27, 2018 by Stephan Moenninghoff Quote Link to comment
markdd Posted September 27, 2018 Share Posted September 27, 2018 2 hours ago, Stephan Moenninghoff said: The top must be a rectangle though, not a square. Ok. Try this! What I can't do is make the corners straight. There always seems to be an outward facing curve to them. Yours and Kevin's seem to be slightly curved in..... 1 Quote Link to comment
elepp Posted September 27, 2018 Share Posted September 27, 2018 That's the best i can do for now! I think my solution might not be very straight forward. Can't get the inward facing curves. Curious for the solution. 2 Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Popular Post Stephan Moenninghoff Posted September 27, 2018 Author Vectorworks, Inc Employee Popular Post Share Posted September 27, 2018 @elepp and @markdd I think you both have solved it. In Mark's example I am still not sure the bottom is a true circle. If it isn't, it can't be considered as solved! The sides don't curve inwards BTW. It may look like they do depending on the view but the sides are straight. Here is how I did it. Curious to learn your methods. Körper.mp4 6 Quote Link to comment
elepp Posted September 27, 2018 Share Posted September 27, 2018 Here is my version, and as I expected mine is not very straight forward. Thanks for showing your solution. Maybe we should this more often here. I like those quick modeling challenges. Always learn a lot. I think I also discovered a bug in the process. Btw. I used the german version but I hope it's half way clear how I did it. CircleToRectangle_2.mov 1 Quote Link to comment
elepp Posted September 27, 2018 Share Posted September 27, 2018 (edited) Here is the bug I encountered. Flipping normals causes the surface to disappear. Edited September 27, 2018 by elepp Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted September 27, 2018 Share Posted September 27, 2018 17 hours ago, Stephan Moenninghoff said: You are very close, in fact it looks like you have cracked it. And yes, you are right, it's not done via a loft. The loft will not give you any precise control over the alignment of the curves. Is that a true circle at the bottom though? The bottom is not a true circle in mine. 59 minutes ago, elepp said: Here is my version, and as I expected mine is not very straight forward. I had a version done this way too. It seemed like the first thing to try. 4 hours ago, Stephan Moenninghoff said: @elepp and @markdd I think you both have solved it. In Mark's example I am still not sure the bottom is a true circle. If it isn't, it can't be considered as solved! The sides don't curve inwards BTW. It may look like they do depending on the view but the sides are straight. Here is how I did it. Curious to learn your methods. Ah, the Deform tool.... I considered that. Mine started as a loft from a square to a rectangle. I also used the Fillet Edge tool with a variable radius edge. The one anomaly I found is that it only worked for the first corner and then I had to reverse it and change the order to do the other three corners. (This might be a normals bug too @Jim Wilson ? ) This was a fun challenge. Kevin Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted September 27, 2018 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted September 27, 2018 1 minute ago, Kevin McAllister said: The one anomaly I found is that it only worked for the first corner and then I had to reverse it and change the order to do the other three corners. (This might be a normals bug too @Jim Wilson ? ) Not sure about normals being at fault (I didn't normally pay them much mind but theyre coming up more often in troubleshooting it seems), but having to do certain corners or certain edges first always got to me. I'll submit this one as I was able to replicate that fairly quickly. 1 Quote Link to comment
markdd Posted September 27, 2018 Share Posted September 27, 2018 I did it Kevin’s way too! I also saw the same normals “bug”. I need to learn more about Normals and their use within Vectorworks. Could anybody point me to a resource that could help explain their concept and usefulness in CAD? Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Stephan Moenninghoff Posted September 27, 2018 Author Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted September 27, 2018 (edited) I like @elepp's surface method. It may be more work but it creates an even cleaner geometry than mine. I try to solve everything using solids because the surface modeller always creates hollow objects which may create problems down the road (Push/Pull does not play nice with most surface objects). I have a few more challenges up my sleeve. I'll dig them up when I have a few minutes. Thanks for contributing, guys. This was fun! Edited September 27, 2018 by Stephan Moenninghoff 2 Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted September 27, 2018 Share Posted September 27, 2018 What a great tutorial. Thanks folks. Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted September 27, 2018 Share Posted September 27, 2018 1 hour ago, Stephan Moenninghoff said: I try to solve everything using solids because the surface modeller always creates hollow objects which may create problems down the road (Push/Pull does not play nice with most surface objects). I normally use Stitch and Trim or the Create Solid checkbox in the Loft Dialog to turn my surfaces into solids. In newer versions the solids geometry is pretty clean. If you find anything that misbehaves I would consider bug submitting it. Kevin Quote Link to comment
Hans-Olav Posted September 27, 2018 Share Posted September 27, 2018 Thanks @Stephan Moenninghoff for the challenge and all of you for discussion and solutions! Quote Link to comment
Tobias Döngi Posted September 28, 2018 Share Posted September 28, 2018 Cool, great tutorials and a lot of fun to learn something about modeling beside the normal hacker work 😉 1 Quote Link to comment
elepp Posted September 28, 2018 Share Posted September 28, 2018 18 hours ago, Stephan Moenninghoff said: I like @elepp's surface method. It may be more work but it creates an even cleaner geometry than mine. I try to solve everything using solids because the surface modeller always creates hollow objects which may create problems down the road (Push/Pull does not play nice with most surface objects). I have a few more challenges up my sleeve. I'll dig them up when I have a few minutes. Thanks for contributing, guys. This was fun! That's true and annoying at the moment. If I use push/pull on the top surface it disappears. Best way is to add a solid on top and combine the to volumes. It's also not very intuitiv that you can apply the boolean function of adding volumes together on nurbs surfaces. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Stephan Moenninghoff Posted September 28, 2018 Author Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted September 28, 2018 27 minutes ago, elepp said: That's true and annoying at the moment. If I use push/pull on the top surface it disappears. Best way is to add a solid on top and combine the to volumes. It's also not very intuitiv that you can apply the boolean function of adding volumes together on nurbs surfaces. Yes, I don't think that's actually a bug that would merit logging. More like a limitation in what surface modelling can and cannot achieve. Quote Link to comment
Benson Shaw Posted September 28, 2018 Share Posted September 28, 2018 Esp @Stephan Moenninghoff @elepp @Kevin McAllister, and also @all others - Many thanks! Challenge is a great idea. I have had so many problems using the variable fillet in past, that I just ignore it. UNTIL NOW that is. Maybe a tutorial on this needs added to the video list? Wish - radius waypoints on edge by length or stations (document units) in addition to percentage. Great to be prodded into accepting, trying, retrying tools and processes. Many thanks! -B 1 Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted September 28, 2018 Share Posted September 28, 2018 47 minutes ago, Benson Shaw said: I have had so many problems using the variable fillet in past, that I just ignore it. UNTIL NOW that is. ^ Same for me too... 47 minutes ago, Benson Shaw said: Maybe a tutorial on this needs added to the video list? Wish - radius waypoints on edge by length or stations (document units) in addition to percentage. ^ I would love a live preview like in Rhino, where you can drag/add/subtract radii points in relation to the edge you wish to fillet. Kevin 1 Quote Link to comment
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