Hi Pior,

> Now I understand that the same end object could have been achieved by projecting trim curves
> onto the surface of an elongated sphere -

Yes, the NURBS modeling way to generate something like that would be something more like draw some profiles, create a surface through those and then cut away material by doing Trim from a separate 2D profile curve from a different direction like this:










NURBS modeling works best when you model what looks like one big unbroken surface out of one single big surface sheet, and unless it naturally has a 4 sided boundary to it the easiest way to get totally smooth surface shaping is to initially create an extended surface like I've done here and then cut away material, rather than trying to go "patch by patch" and try to fill in an irregular outline directly.


> but my point is that in order to "sketch" the preliminary guidelines of such an object, being able
> to work like a sculptor bending wires in space can be a good production boost.

The problem is that NURBS modeling just does not work as well for that kind of an approach as compared to polygon modeling - poly modeling works fine because it's easy to fill in outlines since you can connect up polygons in any kind of topology that you want and it all gets melted down.

NURBS modeling is very different from that, there is not any automatic "melting down" of surfaces just because you join them together - surfaces are modeled more exactly and the best way in NURBS modeling to make something look like one unbroken smooth surface is to actually model it as one unbroken smooth surface that then gets trimmed.

If you like the kind of 3D sculpting like process, a polygon modeling tool is just fundamentally more suited to that type of workflow as compared to a NURBS modeling program. NURBS modeling operates more like "construction" not so much like "sculpting"...

- Michael