New Spline creations.....

It has occurred to me that the thinking process of making a spline is
very much like sculpting. In college we did quite a few models in a
wide variety of mediums. One medium that we used quite often, that I
didn't care for so much but then grew to love, was plaster. Plain ole
plaster of Paris that we would sit a carve, shape, and examine for
hours. Starting out with and paper, about 160 grit and working out way
down to 200 and meshed as well to help create the form. Getting the
"final" shape to take shape became the end result of your "design eye"
and how you understood the form. In the end what you were suppose to
learn was that it is not so much about the individual "point" but the
whole model in and of itself that mattered.

Translate this to the creation of splines. We use points placed along a
spline to help control tangencies and curvature continuity into other
surfaces. Imagine if there were a tool that you could use to manually
"smooth" out Splines. Imagine if the cursor, once you activate the
tool, would become like a small circle (or a circle of any size for
that matter, indicated by you in the property manager) You could then
take that circle and run it along the spline, somehow pushing it... not
so much out of place that it distorts it, though this could be an
option in the property manager that you could adjust, but a way to
sculpt it so that the curvature would be much more manageable.

The whole idea of using points to control splines, though valid, still
address the "little guy" when it is the entire thing that we want
control over. Not in every case would this apply, but I think just
having the ability to have a global control tool not just on a spline
at the sketch level, but then start to take it a step further for
surfaces.

Imagine if you had a tool that once you had two surfaces touching,
instead of having to go into the sketch level and not see the surface
that comes after, because of history and/or relationships. If there
were an accurate way to sculpt between two to more surfaces that would
be able to create curvature tangency/curvature continuous geometry.

As an ID major in school, form, astethitecs, and dynamics of how all of
that played out is and should be a key integration into the 3D world of
CAD. The program is parametric and any changes that are made at the
surface level should translate into the underlying sketch of that
surface.

 

So maybe you want to try Cosmic Blobs?

 

Have it, kewl stuff, but not the level that you would want for real
world design. Imagine that one "Hey, just made my latest car design in
Cosmic blobs." Whew.........

 

Yeh, but think how cool it could look!

Hey, no SWW this year?

WT