I just found out that it is possiblie to create a custom command in MoI, which is great!
Is there a link explaining how to create such commands.
I have two problems to solve:
1. I want to model a simple stone-like shape derived from three closed splines (placed in "gizmo" manner - one in X, one in Y and one in Z planes). My result is not what I've expected ( a smooth shape). I tried trimming, lofting, sweeping with one and two rails without any success. Only creating sphere in this manner produce smooth result (I know that there is sphere solid!)
2. I would like to calculate the area surface of that shape.
I hope you can help me!
Syziph

Hi Syziph,

> Is there a link explaining how to create such commands.

Sorry, there isn't really any documentation available about how to create these commands, Petr learned how just by reading over the existing commands which you can find inside the \commands subfolder in MoI's folder in \Program Files.

It takes quite a bit of time to properly document all the stuff involved with making a custom command - if I were to work on that I would have to stop development of the regular program while I worked on the documentation. So I don't expect to do that for quite a while yet.

Re #1 - I think I understand what you are saying, but it would be a lot clearer if you could post a model with your 3 splines in it.

Re #2 - There isn't anything available yet in MoI to calculate the surface area. I do expect to add a set of analysis and measurement tools in for version 2.0, but that will be a little ways out. In the meantime it is possible to do the calculation by bringing the object into a different program such as Rhino.

- Michael

Thanks for reply Michael
Never looked in the directory where MOI was installed:) Too busy with figuring out how NURBS work.
I created a script that calculate a surface of a mesh in Anim8or, but I think calculating NURBS surface is more precise!
I uploaded two files:
The first one is the closed splines that should form the solid
The second one is my try to do that by trimming splines and using sweep command.
The Idea is to get the solid smooth as much as possible.

I am pretty sure that my technique is bad, than impossibility of modeling this shape.

Hi Syziph - this really needs a tool that MoI doesn't have yet called "Surface from network of curves", or "Gordon Surface".

In the meantime I have attached an alternative method - for this one I deleted one of your 3 curves, and cut one of the other ones in half. Then I did a sweep with the vertical curve as the profile shape, and the two longer halves as rails.

I think this gets you quite close to the result that you were looking for. But you do lose a certain amount of extra control from the extra profile that I deleted. But you can regain some additional control with this single-sweep method by adding more sections along the sweep direction.

That's probably going to be the easiest way to get close to the result you want with the current set of tools. If you build it out of little sections it will be difficult for them to meet up smoothly.

But I'm hoping to add the network surface tool in pretty soon, I think maybe for the next beta.

- Michael

Tricky as usual :)
Sweep function is a realy good one function!

What is exactly a network surface?
(the same as a Gordon curves/ surface)?

> What is exactly a network surface?
> (the same as a Gordon curves/ surface)?

Yup, just a different name for that.

New beta in about 5 minutes!

- Michael