Hi Steve,

> Michael, is there any possibility to convert a polyline to a nurbs curve?

There isn't currently anything for fitting a smooth curve through an existing polyline, but it is certainly something that I can add in the future.

- Michael

Thanks, Michael,

I don't know if it would be a generally useful function.

Steve

Hi Steve, it will come in handy in various situations, but yeah I'd consider it a kind of "advanced" type tool.

At the moment I don't have a good spot to put something like that, but hopefully in not too long I'm going to have a kind of "advanced tools menu" that may pop down from somewhere like the object properties panel. I'm not totally sure about that yet though.

We'll have to see what happens after the next stage of the properties stuff is finished.

- Michael

I've been dreaming of this tool also. Seems like part of a "Healing tools" section. Not being totally familiar with rhino, is there such a toolset?

Sounds great, Michael, I look forward to seeing what else is in that toolset!

BurrMan wrote : "Seems like part of a "Healing tools" section. Not being totally familiar with rhino, is there such a toolset?"

Yes, called "CurveThroughPolyline"

jonah

Ah Nice! Or maybe even a whole toolset devoted to this. (2 surfaces that dont join because of slight imperfection) and whatever else. I could be thinking to arbitrarily, but I may find out that "build it and they will come!"

Just been reading this thread as i was trying without much success to create a terrain model last night. It's a shame there isn't a tool on the horizon which might help us out here. You would think that loft would work but as has already been discussed it breaks down especially when combining curved and straight curves.

@Pilou, Your sandbox solution seems the best and I have given it a go but my problem is that even with weld veticies along edges selected my moi lines are split up into unconected segments when opened in sketchup. How do you create your contours?

@Michael - still no plans for some sort of magic tool which would be good at this type of work? On the outside, to me anyway, it looks like NURBS should be ideal for creating smooth landscaping with roads, pavements and curbs easily added, certainly when compared to making a poly mesh which can be faceted and fidly to adjust with its many points... Strange!

Cheers

Hi Rob, I do have some plans for this, but it is a pretty large area of work so I don't think it is going to be possible to squeeze it into the v2 timeframe. Hopefully for v3 though.

- Michael

Great news, im sure your solution will be worth the wait. V2 sounds great but already can't wait for v3!!

Hi rhodesy,

I made this with 10 Curves then Loft
and history enabled:

A couple of issues with that - first as you can see your node point that you have pulled up is above the surface and hence can not be relied upon for an accurate height. Second contours and spot heights arent always as even as that and usually curve about on plan which causes problems with moi. It is possible to create some sort of network grid but it is a bit of a pain and not very user friendly. Another problem is when you need to add in straight lined contours which don't play nice with curved ones as the loft can distort the surface.

Thanks for trying though.

Hi rhodesy,

I don't know i you have Rhino but
i found this for you:

http://www.rhinoterrain.com/

http://www.novedge.com/products/3237 $635

Rhino Terrain is awesome and Easy Site ... www.cadeasy.com/content/easy_site/esr.htm ... does a pretty good job, too ... but the catch is, you have to run these inside Rhino

cheers,
eric

Hi Rhodesy,

How are you inputing your contours?

Hi Steve, how do you mean? For now I've just been testing it out with made up contours and found there to be issues with the current tool set but Michael seems to be on the case.

Have you found a good solution?

Most terrain contour maps dont use corner points they use smooth curves. You can get better results with smooth curves.

I think we have to differentiate between different types of terrain contours here. For me I would be looking at localised terrain for buildings to be placed on not canyons and valleys which use only curved contours. When dealing with buildings and landscaping though there is usually a mixture of curves and straights - for example most areas of contact between the building and the landscaping will be hard straight lines not curves. So holding out for a solution that can work for all types of terrain work.

I've been educated. Thanks.

Hi Rhodesy,

I was just wondering what type of contour data you would use as a starting point. For example, would you start with 3d vertex data or DEM data?

I haven't found an easy MoI solution yet, but there are a few good possibilities with other software.