[Plugin Beta] Curviloft 1.2d - 13 Apr 12 (Loft & Skinning)

[Pilou]

I moved 1 end vertex in at varying angles.

But like this your surface result is not the same ?
With my method you keep the same surface!
Absolutly no idea why this not works for you ?
I tested on V7, on V6 (all with the divided segment)

But work also if I draw this triangle
Very curious

segment_by_ hand.jpg

[pbacot]

JG,
This is a symmetrical shape and it's interesting that it skins quite well if a line is added at the center. I prefer to divide the end and center line for more subdivisions, but I don't really know if that is helpful. I often find that a shape works better (or at all) in Curviloft with a line or curve added across the center area. But I could use a full course on CL. I am usually shooting in the dark and can understand the purpose to few of the features, myself.

I couldn't get it to skin otherwise, nor follow Rich's procedure. Other curve arrangements would light up and I never got a setup as he shows. [edit: now I see what he did, but I don't know how he knew to do it--and the shape just skinned without me designating any edges--after adding edges at the ends of the shape]

Regards, Peter

[jgb]

Pbacot; I did not try segmenting a line because CL does too much segmentation at best, most of which I end up tweaking out (as I mentioned above) to reduce the line count and surface complexity. Here I just needed a "flat" surface quickly, as a temporary separate group while I did some work behind it.

When it refused to surface I did it manually (triangulating the vertices) as I had no time then to play. Later I extracted the perimeter to see what was wrong, which led to my post.

My supposition about 2 or more acute angles may be wrong after thinking about it and later I will try a few edits to prove me right or wrong.

[Rich O Brien]

@Joel

Try watching this...

http://www.screenr.com/XnF8

[Dave R]

Rich, that explains it very well. Thanks from me even though I wasn't having any problem with it.

[fredo6]

@jgb

Curviloft works with 4 contours (what is called a coon).
When you have a single continuous contour, you need to define these 4 contours. As highlighted by Rich, one simple way to tell Curviloft is to put Break points, with small open segments. Then, you can Select All and proceed with Skinning.

Jgb Curviloft Problem.gif

Fredo

PS1: another way is to use the Edge by Edge selection, and press Return between each of the 4 contours.

PS2: colors have no special meaning except to differentiate the selected contours

PS3: error handling is not complete yet. This is why the plugin is still in Beta

[Pilou]

Aaah OK !
All is clear now!

[ivreich]

How to soft/hide diagonals only??

How does one generate a lofted surface with only the diagonals soft/hidden? This is useful if you want to use the loop/ring selection tools that come natively with thomthom's Quadfacetools...

Currently you have to do it manually, generating two sets of intermediate profiles (in both U and V directions) and merging it with the quadface surface.

joel

[Pilou]

Have you the Skp (V6) ?

[thomthom]

How does one generate a lofted surface with only the diagonals soft/hidden? This is useful if you want to use the loop/ring selection tools that come natively with thomthom's Quadfacetools...

CurviLoft can generate Quad meshes for you if you just enable the option:

GenerateQuads.png

It generates smooth meshes though, so if you want the grid type you have in your screenshot you need to use QuadFace Tools to unsmooth the CurviLoft surface.

[jgb]

@Joel

Try watching this...

http://www.screenr.com/XnF8

Ah IZ simply blown away by this..

I tried segmenting at the same corners, but it didn't work for me, and now I know why. But this and TT's explanation to Ivreich and Fredos "How-to" reply opened my eyes to why I found CL a bit unresponsive to many of my skinning attempts.

Simply a lack of a basic tutorial for Curviloft left me without the tools needed to use CL effectively.

Fredo, that really needs to be addressed. CL is NOT a simple intuitive tool to use.

[jgb]

Fredo; That explanation really opened my eyes. I NEVER knew the toolbar functions were only active in "blackface". I thought they were presets, and that is why it never worked for me.

One question though, when you added the 4 breakpoints (as also shown by Rich) it skinned when you selected all. This object is an extract from a drawing that had lines emanating straight up/down from each point, effectively each being a breakpoint. Many times in the past, if I had an extraneous line or fragmet in the perimeter selection, CL would go RED and not skin till the line was removed. Yet here you show they are included. When I tried this with the original model (a sink base) selecting 4 lines as breakpoints, again nothing happened.

Here is a series of screenshots of what happened.

Overall view of the sink, with the problem area in the base highlighted.

CL Problem - Overview.jpg

And a closeup....

CL Problem - 1.jpg

Skin area removed to redo solution.

CL Problem - 2.jpg

Perimeter only selected. No skinning.

CL Problem - 3.jpg

Added 4 breakpoint lines to perimeter selection. Again, no skinning.

CL Problem - 3a.jpg

Selected 3 lines using CL Select, and

CL Problem - 4.jpg

VOILA, a skin.

CL Problem - 5.jpg

So now I know a whole lot more about Curviloft, but my question now is why did my selection of breakpoint lines NOT work, but worked for you, and not cause an error with CL

[fredo6]

@jgb
It depends on your settings in the button palette
- the mode of selection (Follow <-->)
- the Break at Crossing button must be ON
The small segments must also be 'plain' edges.

Anyway, selecting each of the 3 or 4 contours is a good method too.

Fredo

[Pilou]

I have always thought that this piece was a part of a secret space rocket due the warning text inserted

[Rich O Brien]

I have always thhought that this piece was a part of a secret space rocket due the warning text inserted

[jgb]

I have always thought that this piece was a part of a secret space rocket due the warning text inserted

The sink goes in the rocket cabin.

And I thought I was being clever at hiding its purpose by just extracting the problem part.

[redmaya]

i cant install... i followed the instruction.. i opened then extracted to plugin...

[Dave R]

You have to give more than that for us to help you.

Go back and reread the instructions. Do you have administrative permission to install files into Plugins? Did you get LibFredo 4.6 and install it? Did you maintain the footprint of the files when installing it? What happens exactly when you try to install it? What happens exactly when you open SketchUp after installing it?

[redmaya]

cant install libfredo... when i extract.. it says denied access.....
first i open it in winrar... then copy and paste libfredo6..rb and libfredo_dir_46 into googlesketchup plugin... then extract in winrar in the same location,,,, access denied

[Dave R]

You need to set up administrative rights to add files to the Plugins folder. This is one of the joys of Windows 7.

[Beto Ask]

I already downloaded the plugin and copied all the files to the SketchUp plugins directory but when I open SketchUp it says that there is an error loading several files from curviloft, so the plugin isn't installed. What can I do or what am I doing wrong? please help!

[Gaieus]

What can I do?

Please, make sure to install everything correctly according to the instructions in the first post. If it still fails, make a screenshot of the ruby console when it displays those errors (or actually you can copy that text and paste it here).

[thomthom]

I already downloaded the plugin and copied all the files to the SketchUp plugins directory but when I open SketchUp it says that there is an error loading several files from curviloft, so the plugin isn't installed. What can I do or what am I doing wrong? please help!

Read through this guide to how to install plugins: http://www.thomthom.net/thoughts/2012/0 ... -sketchup/
You might want to use the installer utility it links to.

[transamws6]

I'm getting errors trying to get this to run...
I believe I have the Fredo package installed correctly, but the Curviloft plugin seems to not be working.

I've read all of the install directions and i have un-zipped everything into the directories as instructed.

What am I missing?


Error Loading File bootstrap_Curviloft.rb
uninitialized constant Curviloft::T6Error Loading File CurviloftAlgo.rb
uninitialized constant Curviloft::T6Error Loading File CurviloftCurveMover.rb
uninitialized constant Curviloft::T6Error Loading File CurviloftPalette.rb
uninitialized constant Curviloft::T6Error Loading File CurviloftTool.rb
uninitialized constant Curviloft::T6Error Loading File Lib6Config.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6EdgePicker.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6Input.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6Operation.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6Palette.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6Plugin.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6PluginDialogs.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6Protractor.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6Selmode.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6Startup.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6Tool.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6Translate.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6Upgrade.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6WebHtml.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6WebXTable.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File Lib6_txtmsg.rb
uninitialized constant Traductor::T6Error Loading File __loader.rb
undefined method `effective_load' for nil:NilClass

[massimo]

Do you also installed the LibFredo6? It's clearly written in the very first post.

[Dave R]

It appears to be an installation problem. Post a screen shot of your Plugins folder as well as the folders called CURVILOFT_Dir_12 and LIBFREDO_Dir_46.

[transamws6]

Here are the three screen shots, I couldn't figure out how to embed them in the reply, sorry about that...

https://plus.google.com/photos/10220353 ... yrqfi9zFNQ

[transamws6]

I also used the installer plugin to try to install both but with no luck. I've gotten other plugins to work using the same approach so I'm kind of stumped... Could it be a version issue?

[Dave R]

As I said, it's an install error.

You have extracted all those curviloft... .rb files into the Plugins folder. They are loading at the wrong place. They should be in the curviloft folder. Go back to the first post and look at the Footprint of the plugin as described by Fredo.

I think if you delete all the curviloft .rb files you see in Plugins you'll probably be fine.

Cloft 1.png

[thomthom]

You can also use this utility to help you install ZIP packages correctly: viewtopic.php?t=42315