I’m hoping someone can help me with modelling this top surface. I am attempting to build an ergonomic computer mouse directly through NURBS surface modelling. (This will be a production model so no SubD recommendations please).
My current workflow for the organic top surface is shown below. However I am struggling to gain control over the curves and form on the outer edges.
I would like the outer edge to follow the red line and to create a smooth continuous surface. At the moment the trim is creating flat spots as seen below:
I’m not sure how to align the trim in my top and side planes to get a clean cut.
You can project the bottom and side curve onto the surface with history enabled and then do some point editing to bring the projected curves into alignment.
Its not clear to me what you want to modify. If you want to modify the bottom curve to align with the side curve just point edit the bottom curve.
If you want to modify the surface so that the projection of the two curves align then it would be better to make the two tangent surfaces as one surface. It would be difficult to modify the two surfaces and maintain continuity between them.
Just to be clear, SubD goes to production just fine. the Nurbs surfaces it creates after conversion will tool the same as any other Nurbs surface.
I understand having preference for surfacing and that is fine, but don’t overlook SubD because of a misconception about it’s tool readiness. I take SubD stuff to tool all the time in my consulting biz.
as for Jim’s recommendation about history and point editing, this video may help with that.
no pressure, but…if you do decide to poke into Subd- this video will help with your build-
I love subD and have used it for a lot of projects!
I think my initial thought with primary surface modelling over subD for this “production” model is things like surface offsets, fillets and hollowing / shell commands later down the line.
Maybe this might be something Parasolid kernel programmes can help me with? (i.e exporting the surface and editing in parasolid afterwards and re-importing. I have sometimes found that the conversion from SubD back to nurbs generates poor quality surfaces. Often the model becomes triangulated and are not single span based geometry.
I think what would be interesting is seeing the workflow of generating the organic subD surface and translating them into a nurbs production model. in the case of your video - splitting the mouse housing / shelling out components etc.
subd actually offsets nicely for wall thicknesses-
for fillets and such, I typically crease edges that will be filleted later after a nurbs conversion.
Once it’s converted, it should behave like any other surfaces. (if it does not, we want to see it) I find the simpler you can keep your topology the better the whole build goes.
A strategy I have used several times is to make the “primary” surfaces in subd, then convert to nurbs, then fillet etc… or just send those to my engineer and let them do the filleting in parasolid, shelling etc.. It depends on your studio set up, if you have partners to work with, your data transfer etc..
I tried it abit. It require several reshape of section curves, the shape near to the edge is not perfect yet but more time will get best result.
Basically I use 2 view curve to make 3D curve, i found 2 and 3 need to adjust shape. and then edgesurf, but the iso are ugly so I do some kind of rebuilds on this.
According to my understanding, “clean surface modeling” involves clean surfaces, which means no dense surfaces are allowed. I would start with these simplified surfaces, move some control points around to achieve the desired shape, and finally trim the excess areas.
