DevSrf - How to use

The way I see being able to use this plugin is to start with a two rough control curve with as few as possible control points (for the sake of simplicity) and manipulate them till the approximate desired shape and developability is met?

Which I’m, guessing, in the beginning, can take a lot of time until you become familiar with the required shape.

Sean

One problem I constantly run into is having the ruling lines converging on a single point, or near a single point. Do you happen to know what causes this to happen or possibly what can be done to avoid this?

Yep, that’s how I tend to use it, start rough then fine tune and fair them till the desired shape and developability is achieved

Because I tend to design things that are to be built out of metal and welded together, I leave the curves slightly apart to avoid issues where they come together. A 2-5mm gap does wonders for this issue, without adversely affecting the final fabrication.

It’s due to the geometry of developable surfaces and shape and relationship of the rail curves. For example if one rail curve has a straight section and the other does not have a planar straight section then a triangular flat are will result. Lots of other combinations can also cause it. To avoid you’ll need to change the rail curves.

Important - When using DevSrf for created surface to cover the desired area you will usually need to extend one rail curve at each end, and experiment with the shape of the curve extension. The resulting developable surface will extend beyond where desired, and then need to be trimmed.

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