Hay Michael,
Have one idea, don't know if it is good but i''ll share it.
So for example we have some solid/surface that we wan trim etc..
So if there will be a function that unwrap surface to make it planar. When it is easy to make some changes on this surface trims etc.. And then warp back. Or have warped and unwrapped objects at the same time to see changes we made on unwrapped.
Just Like UV works)

Hi Andrei, you can use the Transform > Deform > Flow command to warp from an unwrapped UV plane onto a 3D surface already, that's pretty much what it does.

To make the unwrapped version, there is no one direct simple width and height that really maps to a warped surface, but often times the length of a median line can be a good one to use to minimize warping. If you extract out curves near the middle of the surface you can use the UnwrapCurve plug-in to make line segments of their equivalent length: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5136.1

- Michael

I'm not so frequently use flow, so have some questions about it. is it possible to warp surface around sphere? to make sphere? And how to unwrap sphere using UnwrapCurve to warp it back with flow (if it possible)?
As i think there is no way to warp around sphere to make sphere.

Hi Andrei, if use a plane as the surface to deform and target it onto a sphere, it will generate a new sphere.

For a sphere you don't really need to use UnwrapCurve to make the base plane, just make a plane that has a 2 to 1 width to height ratio (2 times wider than it is tall). That will then match a sphere surface's general proportions which has a 360 degree circle around the width and a 180 degree arc for the height of it (that's the 2 to 1 ratio).

I've attached an example - the exact size of the base plane doesn't particularly matter, just its ratio of width to height. Here I just drew one with width = 20 and height = 10.

Note that the places that you pick on the base plane and on the target sphere are significant, they will control which edges match with each other and so that controls rotation of the shape. Check out here for some descriptions of the pick areas:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4795.10
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4442.24

- Michael

So for that attached example above if you wanted to make a plain second sphere wrapped around the first sphere, you would replace the kind of fence post pattern object with just a single plane, so that you would have 2 planes there off to the side stacked on top of each other. You would select one plane as the object to deform, then run Flow, select the other plane stacked underneath it as the base surface, and then the sphere as the target surface. That will then warp the plane onto the sphere making a new sphere. But of course the main reason for using Flow is to deform some other kind of flat pattern onto the sphere.

You can see from the example how the flat object is warped onto the sphere with vertical lines getting applied like lines of longitude and horizontal lines getting applied like lines of latitude.

For patterns like this it can be quite a bit easier to create the pattern all flat first and then warp it onto the sphere rather than trying to directly draw it in place on the sphere to start with.

- Michael

Also with a sphere all the material from the top and bottom edge of the base plane gets totally collapsed down to a single point at the poles of the sphere - that can be problematic so you probably won't want to put any actual surface area right in those exact regions or else you may get some semi-mangled geometry right at those spots.

- Michael

Thank you, I just made what I wanted) This is tutorial!

HI Andrei, and for the question you wrote above which I happened to see before you deleted it, to do the actual "duplicate sphere" type case (just as an exercise), one easy way to select the stacked up planes is to first select one by clicking on it, and then run Flow, at the prompt for picking the base surface push Edit > Hide to get that previously selected surface out of the way. Then it's easier to click the second plane as the base surface.

- Michael

Thank you, yes I deleted it because in this particular case I could not select second surface. I made another project and could select it no problem. Don't know why some times I can select some not.
Thanks for trick works good.

You made for me this script that allow hide objects and keep hiden edges hiden:
script: /* Replacement for Edit > Hide - on "unhide" this will only show the parent object and not all its edges */ var gd = moi.geometryDatabase; if ( gd.getSelectedObjects().length != 0 ) { gd.hide(); } else { var objs = gd.getObjects(); for ( var i = 0; i < objs.length; ++i ) { var obj = objs.item(i); if ( obj.hidden ) { obj.hidden = false; obj.selected = true; } } }


And it do nort want to hide object in this case, but simple hide works. Could you modify pleas this script to work?

Hi Andrei, I'm sorry I don't quite understand - what exactly is not working on that script?

- Michael

> Don't know why some times I can select some not.

When 2 surfaces overlap on the exact same spot, there is "z fighting" about which one ends up actually displayed, and click selections target the one that ends up visually on top on that particular spot.

- Michael

Not working:
when I select first surface and run flow, I can not hide first surface with this script, but with hide in UI I can.

Hi Andrei, ok I see now that script does not work to do the hiding instead of Edit > Hide.

Unfortunately it's not quite so easy to adjust that script for this particular case. The object that was initially picked has something called "selection lock" on it so that it does not register as a selection targetable object and that makes it not get returned for the getSelectedObjects() call that the script happens to be using.

For this specific case you'll need to use Edit > Hide instead of that script.

- Michael

Good and last question)

Is it any way to protect resul of flow to be strached like on screen.
Selected sruface that was used to flow is not the same high as result.
Just wanted it to be able to modify planar surface and get the same result when flow. To make it more predictable.


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Hi Andrei, I'm sorry I don't understand the question...

Time for me to go to bed now, if you can maybe try to clarify your question some more I'll try to answer it tomorrow.

- Michael

Good)
For example I want to warp this surface with hole around thise "cone" but can not get rounded hole. Is it possible to keep hole rounded? Like if I projected circle on this cone.

If it impossible (and I think it is so) than my method will not have big advantage because everything is starched on flow result.


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Maybe like this ! ? :)
Draw one form wanted!
Works only for an horizontal serial!

Yep Pillow good idea, but if I want to draw it around?
If I will trim cone all project on it I have no need to unwrap it)

<< but if I want to draw it around?
that works for a vertical or horizontal copy move serial!
So the drawing around is working! ;)

Just one project or several if you want vertical + horizontal / Copy move horizontal / then the Flow ;)