What is really possible with T-Splines.....

[PhilProcarioJr]

So some coworkers keep talking about how limited T-Splines usefulness is. To be honest it's not limitations of T-Splines or Fusion it's the person using them and their knowledge of the tools. I have even seen post here on the boards downing on T-Splines. 

So anyways a friend challenged me to a bet, he claims I can not get the orc head model from Topogun into Fusion 360 as a CAD model fully editable. The head is made up of over a million polygons. Almost 2 million. Here is what the highres model looks like.

The challenge was two fold:

1st part is to model the head using only Fusion 360 and that's what I am going to post today. 

2nd part is I can use whatever tools I have as long as I end up with a fully editable CAD model.

So anyways here is what I came up with after 3 hours in Fusion Sculpt environment using just T-Splines.

Here is a video showing that the T-Spline mesh is fully editable:

I am not happy with this at all but I think it's a good start. More to come....

Cheers

[PhilProcarioJr]

@colin.smith

I know someone's gonna call foul, but I will say it anyways, if T-Splines were developed properly traditional surfacing tools would become the square wheel of CAD.....

@Anonymous

There are no major plans for T-Splines in the near future..........

[colin.smith]

@Anonymous,

Yes, we would like to keep enhancing T-Splines functionality. The reality is that we only have so many resources that we can put on projects, the team the works on T-Splines also works on other modeling tasks. So we can't do everything at once. I think you will see some improvements to T-Splines over the next year.

[colin.smith]

@PhilProcarioJr, I'm not sure what your definition of "properly" is.  

There are a number of customers who require traditional surfacing tools in order to make the switch from their current CAD tool to Fusion 360.

Keep in mind that many of our customers have never been exposed to SUBD modeling before. They find T-Splines interesting, and want to experiment/explore with them but at the end of the day they need to get projects done.  Getting them done means having a proficient set of surfacing/solid modeling tools.  So there has to be a balanced approach to improving parts of the modeling core.

[PhilProcarioJr]

@colin.smith

I am very proficient in Surface modeling and have yet to find a model I can't create in solid works surfacing so I understand what is required of CAD users, I also understand those people wish to cling to the "old" ways of doing things. There isn't anything that surface tools can do that I can't do with T-Splines. Granted with the current T-Splines tools a lot of things are easier with solidworks surface tools but that could be fixed. It's that same old school mentality that makes people say Fusion doesn't work like this app and that's what keeps people from getting their job done......fighting change..... it's those same people that make sure there is a huge gap between the modeling world and CAD. That thinking leads to slow advancement and boring tedious work. Those people are the reason CAD stays the same year to year......I for one am tired of that train of thought.....

[colin.smith]

@PhilProcarioJr, I can't argue with you on that point. Obviously that is part of the reason why T-Splines are in Fusion. However as a product team we can't have an "our way or the highway" approach to the product either. I've heard customers say that they wouldn't go back to the old ways modeling since they have had access to T-Splines in Fusion, I have heard that T-Splines modeling doesn't give the level of control over the model that some customers want, and I've seen customers who have a T-Spline/Surface hybrid approach.  I don't think there is one right answer.

[Anonymous]

I for one am glad I'm starting from the base line! 

I have little use for solids for what I want to do! 

They have a place but it's limited. 

When Phil  explained to me that in my case, fusion is not the one stop tool for my requirement. I wasn't disappointed. 

Maybe one day it will be. But from where I stand it's not a big deal. In fact it's a bonus it's not a one program deal. 

It forces me to learn other software (blenda/maya)! 

That has a great benefit from a growth piont of view! When the tools in fusion catch up then I will have a better knowlage of what I expect them to do? 

Fusion is a tool in the box (Phil's  saying not mine) 

Im not afraid of the work arounds! They are a learning curve! Which has value on its own! 

Not to go of topic from this great thread. (Sorry Phil) 

But what can we expect with the patch/surfacing space? 

N.U.R.B.S? 

[LMD001]

@colin.smith

@PhilProcarioJr

Hello Colin,

Fully agree with you that there are many roads in the CAD world to reach your goal, one approach will work for one workflow, while for someone else the same might not.

Last couple of weeks I watched many hours of videos on T-Splines, mostly based on Rhino, some guys design to 0,001" (0,0254 mm), not accurate enough for some I'm sure, but I believe for most projects, it is.

Phil has proven many times that T-Splines is a serious tool and not just a gimmick or toy. It just needs the right attention and good tutorials.

I get it when further T-Splines development probably is not top list priority for Fusion 360 since not too many people use them, but in the right hands, T-Splines are very powerful and can create models that would be very difficult to achieve with other CAD tools.

Then again, I think Phil is doing a great job on promoting T-Splines by showing what really can be done with them.

Very useful thread!

Best regards,

Ludo

[daniel_lyall]

A clever person would higher phil on to do the tot's for T splines. get the best person to do it. until the tot's have been done not many people will use it.

[LMD001]

Some clever people already hired Matt Sederberg! Mr T-Splines himself.

I agree with you Daniel , Phil knows his T-Splines, unfortunately making tutorials is very time consuming and since Fusion 360 has regular updates, the tutorials also would be very hard to keep up to date. A good (written) tutorial on T-Splines is available from Autodesk: http://www.tsplines.com/support/usermanual.html

There is a lot of information on the Web on T-Splines, mostly video's, but as the Web goes all very shattered and not so easy to find.

Best regards,

Ludo

[daniel_lyall]

@LMD001 I will have a look at that one day

I do have a need for T splines, I have a body addon to make that has 3 parts that need to be molded to a person.

I am going to post it to phil in a few months and let him play with it when ever he has time, the skeleton he is making will be enough to do the modeling too, it's a charity thing I am doing for disabled people.

[LMD001]

Hi Daniel,

Wow, that is quite a task you have there, for sure not the easiest of things to model.

Another example on how different CAD tools can join up and get solutions.

Really nice of you to do this designing/engineering for disabled people voluntarily for your community. Kudos for that!

Best regards,

Ludo

[PhilProcarioJr]

@colin.smith

"However as a product team we can't have an "our way or the highway" approach to the product either."

I would never expect or ask the Fusion Dev team to take that approach or attitude. I have fought for everyone else needs over my own in Fusion from day one.

Personally as long as Fusion is stable I don't much care what is being worked on. My toolbox has many tools in it and there is a reason for that. I have never used a CAD app that has completely met my needs and one will never exist that accomplishes that either. I was merely pointing out that T-Splines could easily put Surfacing tools in the grave with the proper tools and functionality added. Current surfacing tools are the bottleneck that's holding CAD back and the "old" school CAD users are the ones pushing for a stagnant set of CAD tools. I know this because I have been in this game since day one of CAD and I have worked with a lot of the "old" school guys and listen to their thoughts and it blows me away at how closed minded they can be. The thing that aggravates me is this way of thinking is holding me back from achieving that next level in my CAD work as I am limited by the tools in my toolbox...The work I have done in this thread is very poor by my standards and as much as I would love to take it to the next level it's just not possible with the current toolset.

People being "set in their ways" is human nature I guess, but it is a set of rules I refuse to play by. There is no "one right" answer that will make everyone happy and there is no way to even make one person happy because as soon as you give them the "one" thing they want they will want something else and be unhappy they don't have that. Thus the reason I don't ask for anything, I just figure out how to work the best I can with the tools I have and move on...

[daniel_lyall]

It is for myself as well, I am almost finished doing a addon for a wheelchair, half of what is done for the wheelchair goes to a wearable, it's a Zero G arm added, getting the mounting parts done is the hard part it's got to be at the correct position otherwise you don't get the floating action. it's the same idea as a tapping arm.

sorry phil don't mean to hi jack you thread.

[daniel_lyall]

---

@PhilProcarioJr wrote:

@colin.smith

"However as a product team we can't have an "our way or the highway" approach to the product either."

I would never expect or ask the Fusion Dev team to take that approach or attitude. I have fought for everyone else needs over my own in Fusion from day one.

Personally as long as Fusion is stable I don't much care what is being worked on. My toolbox has many tools in it and there is a reason for that. I have never used a CAD app that has completely met my needs and one will never exist that accomplishes that either. I was merely pointing out that T-Splines could easily put Surfacing tools in the grave with the proper tools and functionality added. Current surfacing tools are the bottleneck that's holding CAD back and the "old" school CAD users are the ones pushing for a stagnant set of CAD tools. I know this because I have been in this game since day one of CAD and I have worked with a lot of the "old" school guys and listen to their thoughts and it blows me away at how closed minded they can be. The thing that aggravates me is this way of thinking is holding me back from achieving that next level in my CAD work as I am limited by the tools in my toolbox...The work I have done in this thread is very poor by my standards and as much as I would love to take it to the next level it's just not possible with the current toolset.

People being "set in their ways" is human nature I guess, but it is a set of rules I refuse to play by. There is no "one right" answer that will make everyone happy and there is no way to even make one person happy because as soon as you give them the "one" thing they want they will want something else and be unhappy they don't have that. Thus the reason I don't ask for anything, I just figure out how to work the best I can with the tools I have and move on...

---

this just makes you a useful tool phil yourself you can chuck a few ways to do something at a task and the outcome is never ending but there is a point where one tool hits the wall then you get the hammer out to find the next wall in the meantime you find a new path that may be better and you end up with something that is ok, will do the job but can be made better with this other tool.

solid modeling is linear there is a path to something from nothing the path may be different for each person but the outcome is the same you start it you finish it done.

T splines are endless in what they can do and become, look at the next version of modeling that fusion is getting that's some craze stuff, and it is from nature the good old 3,4,5 rule. the way mold grows.

If a person can not evolve the way they work then they end up in the past, I know a couple of old time cad/cam dudes that give the middle age cad/cam people heaps.

the classic one is the person who did the parallel port trojan horse say's that useing the the parallel port to control machines is out of date move on it's dead. and he's the one that did it and microsoft still don't know how he did it, it took to window 8 for them to work out how to stop it.

and the new program he is doing is half machine control and half iot, thats evaluation there.

keep push the fusion guys they listen to you 

[PhilProcarioJr]

@daniel_lyall

"sorry phil don't mean to hi jack you thread."

No worries this thread is so long and based on comments from users on the forum I can tell there isn't many people that have actually read this thread anyways.

I am always open for good discussions and the work your doing is related to the info in this thread. So no worries.

"keep push the fusion guys they listen to you"

I don't question the fact that they listen to me, but the reality is I am one voice and Fusion is developed based on "Mass" user requests and requirements. So although they hear what I say they can't really act on it. My point of view is different...it's forward thinking...trying to move CAD forward to the next great thing. People don't want the next great thing they want the same old thing they have always had. It allows them to stay in their comfort zone. People want to be content and complacent, not change.

I sat in a meeting with the dev team and many other users of Fusion and listen to one person say "I don't need what Phil is asking for I need this..." The funny thing is exactly what that person was asking for was the stuff I'm doing everyday. It just goes to show that the stuff I work on is new ground and people don't even know what they really need to have or learn to get the job done....

Cheers

[daniel_lyall]

@PhilProcarioJr that does not surprise me one bit that's humain for ya.

[PhilProcarioJr]

@JDMather needed a tutorial for his student to make something like this.

His student drew the wolf picture used to make this tutorial, if I had her name I would post it.

The thread is located here:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/design-validate-document/performance-review/td-p/6617671

This was done entirely in Fusion with T-splines and no other apps.

[rlrhett]

Wow!! I just simply don't know what to say.  I cannot get T-Splines to do the simplest of things.  Completely befuddled.  I am trying to use it to make surfaces like a violin top.  These are organic shapes with precise constraints. The arch must be precise curate cycloid (like a sine wave) and blend smoothly to a precise outline of a rim.  I see some videos where a rough sketch jpg is imported as a canvas and then t-splines are used to eyeball an approximation.  "Eyeball" is not good enough for what I want to do.  I can't be alone.  Almost any aerodynamic/hydrodynamic part (boat hull, airplane wing, propeller) will have the same demands.  I've not found anything that will allow me to blend the precision of a sketch with the organic transitions of T-Spline.

Not asking for an answer to that specific question here, just wondering out loud where the information on how to use T-Splines is.  Clearly the tool is more powerful than I knew, but I still don't understand how to use it.  Let me add my name to the list of people who would like to see an in depth tutorial on how to use T-Splines in combination with other tools to create complex precise machinable parts.

[daniel_lyall]

@rlrhett start a new thread with what you posted here, then it want be hidden in here and it's a good topic there are a few music guys on the forum they may be able to help

[PhilProcarioJr]

@rlrhett

The key to accurate T-Splines is sketches to control the areas that have to be exact and the match tool. I have made many things with T-Splines that were accurate to 0.001".

To be honest it is possible to get more accurate then that but I don't normally work on that kind of stuff. If I had a blue print of a violin I would consider making a tutorial on how to make one.