Michael.

Thank you very much for getting this into MoI v3!

I've been playing with the new feature and I know I'm going to use it all the time - I think it's huge development of the tool. I hope other users of MoI make use of it too.

Just one limitation that I've found is that if the axis of revolution doesn't coincide with the inner end of the Profile Curve, then the surface no longer follows the 3d Rail Curve in the up/down direction. Video here in case my explanation isn't clear http://screencast.com/t/KFNGxmCaFaQ.

I mention it because I've recently been using Rail Revolve with very large radii to create surfaces that are just different enough from Rail Sweeps and Lofts to be quite useful to me, and if it were possible to have the new 3d component present here too, then that would be super. The work-around that I've found is to extend the Profile Curve to the axis with a straight line and delete it and its associated surface later. Another video for this method to help explain what I mean http://screencast.com/t/GJWmaCBw.

Great work, Michael.

 

Martin.

Hi Martin, yeah the non-planar rail revolve support is in here, I hope it will be useful!

And yes - in order for it to kick in, the profile curve must touch the axis of revolution at one endpoint. That kind of helps to make the origin of the scale to be really clear - the vertical scaling happens from that axis point. This makes it not dependent on the particular pick order for when you draw the axis line.

If you want to get it for something that does not touch the axis, then just like you saw you will want to put in an extension line with the extension line touching the axis and then you can remove that later.

- Michael

OH MY GOSH!!!!

This was something I wanted! =-)

Finally! This feels so intuitive for Rail Revolve.

So here is a quick example:

Woah! good call Martin, great implementation Michael and great execution Mike!

Who said organic stuff is not for NURBS ;)

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When you say "great implementation" that is something who is yet inside the actual Revolve by Rail ?

What I mean Pilou is, Martin requested the feature and Michael made it happen nicely.
French translation: La mise en œuvre

Is that what you're asking?

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Ah OK I was beliveved that was a new script or function in this thread! :)

Michael.

I've been getting some great results, but I'm attaching one that's failed for some reason that I can't see, so I'm assuming it's a small bug.




Martin.

Hi Martin, thanks for posting the file. Yup, that's a bug - the bug is that it looks at segments and if a segment is on a parallel plane with respect to the revolve axis it thinks it does not need the additional processing. The bug is that it should be checking this planarity across the whole path curve and not just on individual segments.

It should not be difficult to fix for the next beta release. In the meantime, since the problem only happens on things that are planar but at a different level, it's pretty easy to fix them - use Edit > Separate to break it apart into individual surfaces, select the too tall surfaces, go to the Front view and click one time on the edit frame handle to switch it into "Scale from opposite corner" mode instead of the default "Scale from center" mode, then grab the bottom left edit frame handle and drag it upwards until it snaps onto the rail curve.

Thanks - Michael

Ah, nice to know it's a pretty painless fix for you, Michael:-)

The work around was dead easy too, so I'm a happy camper once again!

Many thanks.



Martin.

A few more rail revolves, with a clothoid and Epi- or Hypo-cycloidal speed reducer scripts:




(Also did an icosahedron using only MoI commands, mostly mirrors and rotates.)

- Brian