Best Fusion method for handling compound surface curves?

[Anonymous]

Been trying to do something very similiar to this video in Fusion but not having much luck with getting the same quality of surface compund curve transitions.

Any help or suggestiosn is appreciated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puhtl3fUE4o

[Anonymous]

Hey again!  I would recommend first watching Michal's (@michallach81) screen casts that cover lofting curvature issues and methods very well:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/post-your-tips-and-tutorials/archtop-guitar-modeling/m-p/5676549/highl...

Good luck,

Jesse

[michallach81]

Hi guys, it's quite late here in Poland so I'm too tired to make any video, but if you can wait couple of hours, I'll make a screencast tomorrow morning ( in a 7-8 hrs), cheers.

[Anonymous]

I would appreciate that very much, thank you!

[Anonymous]

Cool.  Is there much awareness of Fusion 360 over there? (hopefully more than around here in south Florida)

Jesse

[michallach81]

South Florida mhhh.... No I'm afraid that awareness of Fusion is equally low here as it is in Florida (again mhhh...)

I've recorded a screencast as I've promised and now I'm uploading it to the net, it should be ready in a few minutes. I have to warn you it will be quite long and I'm struggling with my english at the and, so be patient please. Nevertheless I think I've achived the goal.

[michallach81]

It took some time but here it is: http://autode.sk/1GzzsHC

Cheers

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the screencast Michal!  Your videos are exceptionally good, covering a lot of good stuff and various approaches in more or less one take.  I feel like I'm sitting in a quality modeling class 🙂

Some of the stuff you covered in this video that I was not aware of:

- Using 3d geometry to consolidate many sketches into one, and with a desired sketch normal vector. 

- Reminding me to create a base feature (or condense a section of timeline into base feature by highlighting timeline events and right clicking to select 'convert to DM feature') when the timeline behavior of disappearing or moving geometry during editing is causing problems.

- Extruding a surface to use its edges for profile when loft is having trouble

- Patch edges will follow normal of profile sketch when no other surfaces to guide patch edge tangency.

- Using sweep to create a better edge guide surface for the patch.

and other stuff.

That's a good point about using the fewest curves possible for lofts, to get good quality surfaces.  The one exception I would say is when a very high degree of control over the surface is desired, and contour maps have been developed for the geometry (ideally using some precision method to generate them or using/modifying from another source...a contour map image can be imported into Fusion and then traced with splines), such as is the case with some guitar faces.  Later in that long guitar body thread rbarr110 gets a very nice result (on page 6 here: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-and-documentation/beginner-question-arch-top-guitar-model/td-p/... ).  In his method in which multiple profiles selected at different elevations, tangency/smoothness is maintained between each loft section, which is good. 

Thank you for all the insight how to get Fusion to work well with what is definitely the most straightforward approach and giving the most "uniform" surface.

Jesse

[Anonymous]

Which leads me to ask, how rbarr110 did you do/get these awesome contour curves?

[michallach81]

Good question, rbarr110 approach is more like sculpting in my opinion.

I afraid that not only it's labour intensive, but to control so many curves and their flow it must result in unmanageable set of patches.

Trying to workout each profile by adjusting CV points will give a result as above, whole surface will look "overworked".

There might be some reasons to add profiles, but only if you know already how your surface should look like.

In a mentioned example, I would go with jeff.strater initial idea:

[Anonymous]

First and foremost, thank you for that video.  I plan on trying to put it to use this weekend.

I found the plan I used about 3 years ago doing a Google search for Les Paul Arch Top contour plans yielded a contour map someone made years ago, supposedly by someone that had a late 50's LP guitar and created the contour map so people could reproduce the classic arch top.  Funny thing is, at the moemnt I am having a hard time finding the same document via google today.  I can find other peoples drawings that appear to have used the same contours, but the original document is hard to find.  I

That search led me to other guitar building forums and plans.  Being the nerd engineer I am, paper plans arent good enough so I spend way too much time trying to learn these modeling programs in my spare time.  I actually purchased plans from someone that gave me most the info I am working off of for the LP, I had the plans scanned and started the modeling.  Funny thing is, most plans dont have the contour map, some do, but the ones that do have the contour maps look wrong in most of them (at least to to me).

If anyone wants the plans that I have, I will gladly share (except for the plan I paid for, not fair to the guy that created it and sells them).

[Anonymous]

That's interesting, I never used the curvature comb before.  I noticed it's easier to work a spline to have a generally smooth/uniform curvature comb when as few spline control points as possible are used:

I'd say your statement is accurate about already knowing your desired shape/having the contour curve map in hand if using that high control method.  I remember one of the reasons rbar110 was looking for alternatives to T-splines, is because of the difficulty of precisely editing the mesh, without other areas subtly shifting.  It may take more time initially to set up a good contour map, but then in some cases it may behave more consistently to get a complex shape "just so".  I don't know. 

Thanks again for your insights!

Jesse

[Anonymous]

If I were making something completely of my own design, I can see using the alternate methods of making the curved surface.  However, I am trying to recreate something that already exists that has specific heights at certain points.  Yes the contour map was labor intensive, but the end result is very, very, very close to part I am trying to recreate.