I have two shapes. Each of which I joined then executed LOFT. Worked great however I cannot save it. When I open the file it opens un-joined.

How can I save it and re-open it as a lofted creature?

ms

Please post your two 2d end objects.

(I did a quick visual recreation, and it lofted and saved fine.)

- Brian

Edit: Does your loft with closed ends show as a solid?

Hi Marv, yeah like Brian writes above please post your 3DM model file instead of only a screenshot, that helps a lot when taking a look at what's going on in your particular case. Maybe there is some problem with those particular curves.

One thing to note is that there is a final stage in the Loft command where you can adjust options, you need to push the "Done" button (or right click in a viewport which is a shortcut for "Done") to completely finish the Loft command before you go to do a save. If you try to save while you still have not completely finished the Loft command, it will cancel the Loft command. Is that possibly what you have run into? If that's not it, please post the model file.

- Michael

Hello Brian and Michael,

The "DONE" did it!

I have one other question about the same drawing. After I join and save, the file does not open joined. I then have to join again before I LOFT. Is that normal or am I missing another "Done"

ms

Hi Marv,

> After I join and save, the file does not open joined. I then have to join again before I LOFT. Is that normal or am I missing another "Done"

No, that's not normal, can you please post the 3DM model file so I can take a look at what you've got?

Maybe you've got some duplicate curves stacked up on the same spot, some unjoined and some joined...

The Join command finishes immediately so it doesn't have a last "Done" step.

- Michael

Hello Michael,

I'm importing and saving in a .step file. When I saved it in a .3dm file it re opened joined.
Here they are. Am I OK?

Hi Marv, yeah that's normal - 3DM format is the one you should typically use to save your model data while you are working on stuff within MoI, it's the "native" format that will keep everything in the same form as you see it in MoI. Use the other formats like STEP, IGES, or SAT only when you're trying to move your data to a different CAD program.

You may see various slight changes in things when you save to STEP and read it back in again, some things in STEP format are slightly different than how MoI itself handles things.

If you use 3DM format for your intermediate working stages it should preserve things exactly how you see them in MoI though.

- Michael

Hello Michael,
Thank you. I did find importing with .step did not work well. Dimensions were wrong so I switched and imported with .iges which is fine. I now quickly save in .3dm

Here's my last and silly question.
Long1 is butted at F1 which is 3.0 wide. Firewall is 2.8 wide. How do I make Long1 fit at the firewall? presently has a .11 gap

ms

Placing a short line segment from the notch of the firewall, forward, and another at the notch of the second cross section,
going rearward, enables a blend, with fine bulge adjustment...
Maybe re-boolean the notches to fit?

Is it an airplane or racer?

- Brian

Thanks Brian,

It's an autogyro

ms

Hi Marv, did Brian's suggestion above work ok for you or are you still stuck?

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking about making this piece shown selected here to mate up better with the circled area, is that right?



So I guess if a straight piece doesn't fit right you'll need to decide how you want a different type of shape formed that will fit, you could put in 2 rectangles and then use Construct > Loft to build a slanted surface between them something like this (shown a bit exaggerated here):



Or the way Brian is talking about is using Blend to make a kind of slightly "S" shaped transition shape, you can do that by drawing in some lines and then using Construct > Blend between the lines to generate blend curves like this:


Then you can loft between pairs of the blend curves to build surfaces.

- Michael