This is similar to the post here where there was a discussion of how to create renders or vector images of surfaces. In particular, I have this surface:
of which I wanted to transfer to Illustrator. To do this, I used this guide to extract the vector curves using Make2D. I then intend to overlay these curves onto the raster render.
What I did was select the surface, used ExtractWireframe, then applied Make2D to this wireframe. The problem is that the wireframe does not take in account the visibility of the surface, so it is showing the hidden isocurves in addition to the visible isocurves:
I want to extract out exactly the same lines as displayed in the viewport (first image)—no more and no less. How would I do this?
You don’t have too many isocurves showing in the first image, so this won’t take long. Use “ExtractIsocurve” and snap to all the points/ knots where you see your visible isocurves - the ones you want. This will make 2d lines of them. Put them all on another layer. Then Make2d straight from that state - with the curves and the surface. Only check to make the visible lines (no hidden lines) and separate them by layer. Then you’ve got a quick easy surface.
This seems to work perfectly. Thank you for the tip, and thank you also for the example file.
One last question if anybody knows. For some reason, when I use Make2D (only visible curves checked, no other options), the wiggles near the inner boundary of my surface show up. These are part of the isocurves.
I’m not sure why they are showing up since I would assume they’re not a surface edge or border (or maybe it has something to do with how I generated the surface). This does not seem to be a huge problem since I can eliminate them once Make2D is invoked since the paths are separated.
However, I’d still like to know why some are being drawn and not others.
