Need help with flow

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 From:  bigseb
4733.1 
I have been playing around with the flow command but had mixed results. Is there a help page for this command listing all the do's and don't's?

I have attached a file. For some reason I just cannot get it to wrap around the cylinder. I would really appreciate some input on this.

Thanks
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 From:  BurrMan
4733.2 In reply to 4733.1 
To start, turn on the show points for your base plane.. It seems to be a twisted base structure... This underlying surface will play a part in the flow... I recreated the base surface with the plane command.. I also joined together all your surfaces to help the command recognize what was there...

EDITED: 19 Jun 2012 by BURRMAN

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 From:  bigseb
4733.3 In reply to 4733.2 
Actually I got it working shortly after posting. All I did was a line and circle as reference and base, instead of a plane and cylinder. Would still like to see a flow 'rule book'...

Still I will look at your example, see what I can improve on. Thanks Burrman!

Didn't import into Alibre to well but then I have been down that road many times with Alibre :(
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 From:  Michael Gibson
4733.4 In reply to 4733.1 
Hi Sebastian, it sounds like you've got it figured out now - please let me know if you still need help with it.

There isn't any regular documentation for it yet - basically I will do the full documentation at the end of the beta period and not right in the middle of it because there is too much of a chance that things could change due to feedback during the beta and I would need to redo the documentation over and over again.

There are some demos and discussion of Flow on the forum here:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4363.124
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4363.65
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4442.24

- Michael
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 From:  Michael Gibson
4733.5 In reply to 4733.2 
Hi Sebastian, and yes like Burr mentions your best bet for a base surface is to make a simple plane using Draw solid > Plane - that will make a simple untrimmed plane surface which will be a more predictable base surface.

It looks like in your original file you made the base surface using something like Construct > Planar (or possibly by trimming some other larger surface?), which does build a planar surface but it will be a big plane that uses the curves you picked as trim curves on the interior of it - it's best for Flow to directly make a simple plane instead of that so you have the underlying surface at a known orientation.

In order to see the underlying surface on your original plane, select it and then use Edit > Show pts like Burr mentioned, and also note that you will need to zoom out a ways to see the surface control points because they're a ways larger than the visible section of it which contains the trim curves.

Then the other thing to be aware of is that the places that you pick on both the base surface and the target surface are significant and will control how the pattern is rotated when going from one surface to the other, one of the links I posted above has some more description of that.

- Michael
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