Loft between 3 faces / Smooth out model
all in all it's a good showing for your first time out. general thoughts would be
-you've referenced from a sub-component back up to the top level component, which strictly speaking isn't wrong, but I try to avoid it on more complex models because it makes things less stable and harder to debug.
-on sections you want to be straight, like the Center section of that leg, you might consider a short sweep, and then lofting to the sweep. otherwise you can end up with funkyness like this curvature-
sweeps where 3 parts come together are challenging to loft. you'll need to beak it down a little differently to get a good joint there. I noticed that none of your guide rails are tangent or better at this location. you can do that by creating the solids you want to connect to first-
create rails that re tangent to the solids, you can split the faces to get something to apply a tangent constrain to. Tyo may not need the guide rails at all. try just lofting half the cross sections together with the end conditions set to tangent or smooth, and adjusting the weight. that might be enough. if not put in the rails.-
this might also workbetter using surfaces instead of solids.
pic of first loft position
make 2 more like this
then patch the triangle gaps together.
attach is a rudimentary model using the same idea but with sweeps instead of lofts.
@ruben_van_lerberghe wrote:
Another issue is that when i want to shorten the back leg, the armrest goes down as well. I've tried removing constraints but this remains a problem where i can only redo the spline that makes the armrest.
I didn't look into this, could this be related to the back and forth referencing?
I don't think t-splines will help you out on this project. I usually use them for creating beginning geometry, not for finishing geometry.
@ruben_van_lerberghe wrote:... I'm stuck trying to split 3 circles and making those tangent rails...
here's your file back with the three way split. I added a radius line to each of the three sketches that defined the ends. used those to split the faces. had to switch over to surface mode, lofted edges together, patched the opening, stitched it back into a body.
I took a quick look,might have more time this evening.
the 2 sketches defining the arm are a mess.
-you have several tangent issues
-there several places where curves overlap instead of meeting endpoint to endpoint. you need to make sure the endpoints are coincident.
-there are short arc segments hidden in among the other curves.
-there is this in sketch armleg3
-I've experienced general performance issues in the past using trimmed ellipsis, there use to be bugs associated with it, and I suspect they are still problematic. I would approximate that with a fit point spline. in fact, I would do the entire profile with a continuous fit point spline and eliminate the arcs also.
@laughingcreek wrote:
...issues in the past using trimmed ellipsis, there use to be bugs associated with it, and I suspect they are still problematic.
Yep, still buggy in more than one aspect. I had honestly contemplated not reporting this.
Hey Ruben,
I want to sit in that chair when you finish it. 😊. Both @davebYYPCU and @laughingcreek have given you some sound approaches to handling this situation, So I don't have much to offer that hasn't already been said here. I will leave you, all of you really, a nice video from Chad Lockart, one of our Technical Sales guys who's an expert (surface) modeler. His approach to handling transitions like this is really powerful and a I would advocate as a really good best practices. Hopefully this will be helpful in solving geometry problems like the one you're trying to build.
Jamie Gilchrist
Senior Principal Experience Designer
