Hi Marc, I've added "adjustable blend" to my todo list.


> I was wondering if even a kind of 2d eraser tool might be useful in moi.

You mean similar to a bitmap type eraser? One thing that I'd be kind of concerned about is the possibility of getting too many little teeny tiny fragments. Maybe something that was a kind of quick trim of everything past the end of the curve after a certain point would be doable though.


> Also, being able to re-edit the blend bulge afterwards would be very cool, but I guess it might be complex to implement.

That one would probably be part of a whole extended history editing mechanism. I would like to do that at some point but it will certainly be a huge amount of work involved to do it properly.

- Michael

Ok, thanks Michael!

Concerning quicktrim, I wonder how it could behave with closed curves...
Maybe it could just make an open path out of a closed one when clicking, the starting point being where the user clicked.

Marc

Hi,

I was doing some leaves this morning (with flow deform it's amazing!) and it got me thinking again about some kind eraser function.
It would definitely speed things up when doing some 2d blending with curves.

The minimum radius could be rather large so there would not be a lot of tiny pieces left.
Unselected objects would not be affected by the function.

It could also work with the wacom eraser.

It might seem out of place in a cad program but could be surprisingly productive when exploring shapes.

Marc

"... something that was a kind of quick trim of everything past the end of the curve"

I agree. I think a single click to auto-trim over hanging segments from intersected lines (and join the result) would allow for very fast drawing.

Much like quick hand sketching where you are concentrating on the overall shape (and not clean end points) and go back and erase the over-hanging lines.

I know you can use the current Trim function, but not in a single click as far as I know.

Would be a neat feature especially when used with fillet to round the intersections afterward.

Good for tablet drawing as well.

Ed

Hi Marc, re: Eraser function, are you talking there about something that's just totally driven by mouse movements alone (like cutting things by a roving circle around the mouse basically), or do you mean something that would use other current geometry in the model as the cutters?

- Michael

Hi Michael,

It could work in two modes:

1 : Like some kind of quicktrim where everything under the drag would be cut to the nearest crossing curve.

2 : Like a big lazy eraser using no existing geometry, wiggle and trim in one click.


Both could use a round adjustable radius, like a kind of paintbrush.



An example of the fist behavior, one could swipe through (in red):


And get this result


There could also be an alternate selection mode using this method, sort of paint to select.
It would be quite quick for complex multiple line or point selection...

Just thoughts.


Marc