Cage Edit - Shrinks Surfaces in Polysurface

Is there a way to Cage Edit a polysurface without it shrinking all the parts?

Whilst I recognise it’ll probably make things more complex… it would be handy to still untrim back after the cage edit.

1 Like

check the command line options using cage edit but I think it will shrink the surfaces anyway because how it works.

Preserve Structure doesn’t have any effect.

FlowAlongSurface also has the same behaviour too - the untrimmed object isn’t flowed, which I get, because some of the results could probably be really weird if the whole thing went over.

I accept that it’s probably just the way it works and not something likely to change. Maybe it’ll just jog a mind or two, whether it’s 5% or 95% feasible/possible.

Might be a long shot but… is it something scriptable? Or does the GeometryBase.MakeDeformable or IsMorphable methods immediately shrink something back?

Anyone more advanced / McNeel-ish that can explain this aspect of the command? For interest a little bit too, because it does really reduce the editability of something in some cases. Seems like kinda an important thing to me?

Hello -if you want the complete underyling surfaces to remain intact, Explode the object and set PreserveStructure=Yes - this will pull edges apart and it is unlikely to Join when you’re done, on the other hand.

-Pascal

1 Like

And I can do this method with PreserveStructure = No, and that should still join okay. Or does Preserve Structure actually preserve both the control point structure and extents of the underlying surface as well?

Interesting. I also previously discovered something that shrinks surfaces without the user necessarily wanting to.

Yeah. I mean, it’s certainly not the bane of my life. But that nice editability and time-saving get for free with CageEdit / FlowAlongSrf (plus other deformers?) then hits a very abrupt brick wall when, as you say, stuff gets shrunk.

‘Repeating’ a cage edit can then be a pain if you’re really desperate to get that deformed result, but in its untrimmed entirety (even if it does have many more CPs).

Would be interested to know how anyone would approach that, in the case of box cage edits. Rectangular/srf/line cage edits aren’t so bad if you just keep before/after manipulation, then match the points up.