Hi David, one possible approach:

Base surfaces built by Loft and some surface control point tweaking:




Surface blend between edges:




Side profile then Trim:





Another profile then sweep 2 rails:






This a sort of alternate "trim and blend" NURBS workflow which can used for stylized objects that may be difficult to create with the usual method of just using boolean cuts on a base shape. This style of NURBS modeling tends to be more complex and has a higher learning curve but it can work for more swoopy industrial design type shapes.

When you're heavily using this style of modeling the advantages of NURBS modeling are not as pronounced (as compared to sub-d modeling) as for things created using more solid modeling operations like booleans. So if your model requires a whole lot of this type of modeling you should possibly think about whether it's really better suited for doing in sub-d instead.

- Michael

Hi David, also you previously wrote:

> So this time I'm trying to build a simple shape to tackle the basis.

From a "CAD" point of view that's not really a simple shape at all, it would be hard to make a blueprint of it with dimensions on it, there's not any straight lines or things that correspond to constant radius fillets.

The less that a piece has any kind of straight lines in it at all and is all only bendy swoopy stuff, the less of a match it becomes for a CAD toolset, it becomes difficult to drive the design primarily by 2D curves.

NURBS modeling is best suited for models that can be formed by 2D curves - that's when your model will be very quickly and easily created by CAD. If your model is pretty different from that then by CAD standards it's not a simple shape at all and you may be better off doing it in an organic sculpting environment rather than in a CAD environment.

- Michael

I believe this is why a lot of our vendor / suppliers now want model files and not dimensioned prints. Consumer products (among others) have gone way over to the organic side of things.