Airplane wing with endcap wont' thicken
I tried to download you attached model twice and it just will not open. It gives the error below. The path shown is my location for Fusion 360 files I download from the forum, the error is after that. Please attach your model again.
John Hackney, Retired
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Yep, not a surprise!
There are two issues that make this seemingly simple geometry very challenging:
1. You are using fit point splines, which in FUsion 360 are 5-degree multi-span splines. These harsh transitions are where the rails are and they over-consrtin the surface.
2. Te training edge of the loft is a point, which means you are lofting into a singularity.
If you want to get into technical surfacing, here's a link to the Autodesk Alias Theory Builders.
I recommend this as a basis for anyone wanting to really understand lofting in Fusiosn 360 as it creates NURBS surfaces, but the documentation in Fusion 360 is kept artificially at the layman level.
You can create smooth surfaces with Fit point splines and in many cases, they are also my go-to tool, but this wing tip is not simple. Unless you absolutely must to have completely uniform wall thickness I'd actually create a second loft for the inside and stitch that to the thickened inside of the wing.
Using Control point splines will not automatically create better surfaces and comes with its own challenges.
I would try to create the wing profile with 2 splines only, one for the top and one for the bottom, or perhaps even just one. Use as few fit-point spline control points as you can. It takes a good bit of patience to manipulate the spline handles so the curvature combs are smooth. In that case-control point spline might work better.
The rails you used for the wing tip would really only have three, or perhaps only two spline control points.
I prefer one spline top and bottom, your leading edge radius is causing trouble.
Rebuilt as I would do it, won't thicken or shell, so fudged aproximate 1mm thickening.
Fusion Loft inherently wants to shrinkwrap in my experience.
Might help....
Yep, that means you are over-constraining the loft and need to break the loft down into smaller patches.
Your loft looks good and I am not sure I would try to get much further using Fusion 360.
If this model would be 3D printed or hand-manufactured then this is all that is needed.
If you wanted to present a high-end rendering or VR presentation where glossy reflections would be subject to the discerning eyes of experienced industrial designers in the automotive or aerospace industries this would not be enough.
Dave,
Thanks for sharing, very clever idea using the offset/split work around. Your geometry is a little cleaner than mine and looks nice. I played around a bit and found with your version I could thicken the stitched bodies in a range between -.4 to -.8, wouldn't however thicken with symmetry or positive values wouldn't work. Overall this is what I was looking for as 3D-Printed RC Plane model parts must be printed with extremely thin walls due to weight requirements.
Thanks to all who posted!
