Hi - I could really use some help/pointers solving a problem with a surface. In the included file there are some curves (red) that I tried to network surface. I’ve tried to break it up into smaller sections but that resulted in less than acceptable creases.
Am I using the wrong command for this?
Somehow I managed to get the other part to work and fit in as I need it.
problem.3dm (2.8 MB)
Hello - why do you need a separate surface here - will it not be planar like the rest of the outline? Oh never mind I see…
-Pascal
I think in this instance it would be much easier and editable if you made a big, simple, oversize surface that is tangent to your planar surface and then gets trimmed with your curves.
Here’s that that would look like. It’s a totally different way of approaching the problem - you’ll be trading off some adherence to your curves in exchange for higher surface quality and the ability to very easily edit it. You can create surfaces that come off of your main planar surface however you envision them twisting and deforming, and then you simply trim (Project or Pull the curves) to achieve your final shape. I edited it to more closely match the z level of your curves, but I’d probably back it off a little on the edge that faces the neck if it was me.
GuitarAltSolution.3dm (1.9 MB)
Thank you for your help - could you please save it as a v6 file?
Much appreciated!
This way the curves I drew that are causing problems would not be needed right? Only the outlines to trim it back to the original contours?
Well basically what I’m saying is that there’s a different way of thinking about this problem. Instead of first focusing on every single curve, this way you first think about the overall macro shape first, that you then trim to your final desired result. Imagine you’re starting with a sheet of veneer to represent your guitar surface, and you get the broad strokes of how the surfaces contour off the main flat body first, and then after you do that you are trimming for things like pointed ends and such.
Awesome… that looks so much cleaner than what I came up with…
Thanks for explaining this to me, I had my focus on the sweep and pointy parts rather than the whole thing… Thank you very much!
At the very least I got some practice in networksrf… It will probably not work in the end as it should so I better redo it all.
problem.3dm (3.3 MB)
Some points to add in here -
Often times - myself included for sure - when folks start modeling they get overly fixated on the curves themselves. The problem is that often we end up drawing stuff that does not actually describe something smooth, or maybe it’s not quite what we had in our head. The curves should just be a guide for us, not the absolute last word. The problem with NetworkSrf is that it creates surfaces that are so dense, and so there’s no way of smoothing things out or fixing them if we go that route. The other portion that you filled in with NetworkSrf honestly worked out just fine (depending on just how smooth you want to be) but it mostly worked out because it was a much simpler case. The NetworkSrf approach to modeling starts to fall apart when you start doing more complicated stuff, or if you want to sculpt/edit/modify your models. I actually created an entire series just focusing on the basics of understanding point count/degree, patch layout and matching, you might find it useful:
Thanks for your reply.
I was offered to have a neck and body CNC’d if I provided the files. This is my very first attempt at designing anything in Rhino so I went a bit overboard 
I wanted to do some shapes that I found hard to get right when sanding and carving bodies manually. I will check your videos for sure and redo what I’ve done so far. I really appreciate your answers!
Feel free to hit me up! I did a whole series of necks (10-12 iirc) for a well known boutique guitar mfg years ago - in this case they were looking to take some of their hand carved shapes and turn them into production models. We laser scanned them and then used that data as a guide tor rebuilding idealized surfacing so they could CNC wood blanks. I can tell you that the blends at the base of necks can be TRICKY and frustrating - so if you have the ability to get up onto 7 and use the new Subd tools you might want to consider that. I used T-Splines at the time, a plugin no longer sold that’s very much like the Subd tools. These were fairly fancy acoustic necks tho, so if may be that the design you have in your head is different from what I had to make. Anyway, good luck and have fun!