Enhance pull Command - making it interactive

[cekuhnen]

Is there a way to make TS pull interactive, constantly snapping / pulling / projecting TS points / faces onto a target surface?

For simple pulls it is sufficient - for retracing more complex shells it is  labor intensive because model pull model pull model pull ...

Here is a screenshot of showing how I would use it in Fusion and how I would work with a similar tool in Blender.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byzv_NlyKp_2WUxwdWlteWRQMTg/edit?usp=sharing

With the tool in Blender rebuilding such complex shapes is no real problem to get incredibly acurate capturing the details of surface flows and edge blends.

Gray is the original Step data - blue is the new poly mesh for upholstery fabric.

[deyop]

There are capabilities in T-Splines for managing the workflow you demonstrated in Blender.  There are options in Edit Form, Face, Subdivide, Insert Edge for Object Snapping that will evaluate an target object for placement of the vertices.  This is more interactive but suffers from the drawback of snapping the vertices which aren't the same as fitting the surface.  It looks like Blender has this same behavior.  The Pull command give you the alternative of snapping the surface controls which can improve the fit.  Why not always snap the surface controls?  Well the reason is because it take an additional step that would make the interactive Object Snapping slower.  The approach we might suggest would be snapping with Object Snapping to get close and then refine with Pull to snug it closer.  

I don't think this is an ideal solution.  Snapping in Blender or Fusion has to determine the closest point between the vertex and the target.  This is handled by looking for the closest point which leads to an apparent disconnect between where the vertex started and where it ends up on the target.  The only solution for this is to get closer to the target.

There is a demonstration of Object Snapping in the Learning Section.  Look under "Create Forms using T-Splines" for "snap vertices to objects" or search for Object Snapping.

I don't think this is an ideal workflow and we will be returning to this in the future no doubt.

[cekuhnen]

Snapping in Blender has one major drawback - it snaps a vertex to a face and if a sub-d modifiere is afterwrads added the finale smoother surface will be offset.

This is why in my workflow I use a process where I have a low poly cage I sculpt then I sub-d it and the finer mesh I project into a target surface and the outcome I run through a sub-d modifier again.

That is ok for free sulpting but when you need to hit a certain surface tollerance uhm not really ideal.

That's why I was curious if the push could be more interactive. I also noticed that push adds a lot of nasty distortions compared to how srhinkwrap works in Blender. Maybe that was influenced by how pull works along a face normal vector I assume.

Maybe I should make a side by side comparision of how the tools work in each system.

[cekuhnen]

i did a test in blender and one in fusion and fusion's result shows clearly the deformation.

I think this solidifies a case would make pull a bit more interactive.

Here are all source files - Blender OBJs Fusion.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byzv_NlyKp_2NmRyaThXeGxzUVU/edit?usp=sharing

[colin.smith]

 There will be enhancements to snapping in TSplines coming.  Release date TBD>

[cekuhnen]

@colin.smithPerfect this is really missing!