bending objects

 From:  Michael Gibson
3875.9 In reply to 3875.6 
Hi Andy,

> Some basic deformers would be very welcome. :)
>
> Is this something planned for the next version?


Yup, it's pretty high on my list of stuff to try for v3.

However, it is a somewhat difficult process to transform a NURBS solid and still keep all the pieces joined together - one reason is because the edges where the various surface of a NURBS solid touch each other can be at trim curve edges and not necessarily aligned to the underlying surface's control point structure.

See here for some more info on underlying surfaces and trim curves:
http://moi3d.com/FAQ#Q:_Why_does_show_points_work_for_some_objects_but_not_others.3F

So because of that kind of surface structure it means that you can't transform a NURBS solid just by transforming all the control points of each surface in the object, which is very different than transforming a polygon mesh object where you can just transform all the vertices and it's done. Instead with the NURBS transform all the surfaces have to be kind of refit with a new surface.

The Solids++ geometry kernel that MoI uses did recently add in support for this kind of deformation stuff, which I hope I will be able to use to add these kinds of deformation tools into MoI v3, but I have not yet had a chance to dig into them so I'm not sure how well they work yet.

- Michael