Hi,
I was wondering if there is a way to have a Nurbs surface points displayed ON the surface at all times instead of having control points ‘’ enveloping " that said surface.
And if it is possible we could have a tool to align the selected points on the surface to line them up or flatten a lumpy surface in X, Y , Z with the SetPt function for example. Not sure if you guys get my drift.
Thanks
Alex
In theory this is possible, but only implemented for curves, not surfaces. For curves, use the EditPtOn command.
What I think you could do is to create a surface from curves with history enabled (using e.g. loft, networksurf, 1/2 sweep rails, etc.), then use the edit points on those curves to manipulate the surface.
Thanks but I m thinking of complex surfaces where I know that history is already broken.
Hi Alexandre - the way to do this, maybe, is to distribute your points and then use Patch with History, and select the original surface as the ‘Starting surface’ in Patch. You’ll have to experiment with the setting for ‘Preserve edges’ and ‘Starting surface pull’. I’d start that at zero. You should then be able to move the points and have the surface update.
-Pascal
Or, McNeel could implement edit points for surfaces. They are nothing more than the Greville abscissae; with known knot vectors, surface control points can always be interpolated back from changes in the Greville points. Just sayin’ 
Yep, my understanding is that these are much less controllable on surfaces than on curves - at least that is what I recall.
-Pascal