I’m trying to figure out how to avoid sharp edges if possible when sequentially lofting.
In this case, I’m joining contour lines for some topography. You can see the sharp edge in the middle here.
If possible, I’d like to keep the surfaces separate, but could split them later if needed, especially if there’s a way to control this at individual edges, such as the edges of the canal at the base of the hill.
Bonus question: are contour maps usually drawn/created with Grasshopper? Seems like that might be good to avoid re-lofting everything when adjusting contours? I’m going to try to figure that out…
Typically, you’d use the “Loose” style when creating a loft.
When you get contour lines from whatever source, you’d hope that the terrain is actually on (some points on) those contour lines (and not defined between them). Loose lofting will create a surface that doesn’t go through that middle contour line, and, as such, you can’t (or shouldn’t) use that for this purpose.
IYAM, trying to create NURBS surfaces for terrain is a dead end. In another thread, you asked about downloading elevation data and @Brian_Washburn showed you Heron. Did that not work out?
Usually not, no.
Usually, one’d get a quality dataset, and, if modifications are necessary, use mesh tools to modify the terrain. There are several plug-ins that provides such tools on Food for Rhino. If your workflow involves editing contour curves, you might want to try Jørgen’s TerrainMesh plug-in.
-wim
My question here is about topography, but I was also asking so I could apply the knowledge to modeling other stuff, too.
Part of what I am doing is creating my own topography that isn’t based on a dataset, so
Just wrapped up some projects this week, so I’ll be trying out Heron today, and will take a look at the other tools as well. This is for visualization, so while accuracy is great, things being off a bit won’t matter at the moment.
FWIW I think Grasshopper may also be a way to shape terrain in “real-time”, though I havent’ figured out how to get the contours in the correct order yet. Why is it that NURBS surfaces are a dead end? Just curious. Thanks.
Because being able to create all details at every location of the terrain would typically require an immensely dense NURBS surface, or very many different patches that you need to control continuity with the surrounding patches for. For a simple illustration, though, that might be fine.
-wim
I’m going to try to figure that out…
