I agree, if creating the functionality of VSR was easy, everyone would do it.
-Sky
Hello,
If consideration for purchase is tied to time and money then the decision becomes clearer even if VSR never becomes a v6 plugin. Being able to create superior surfaces in less time than using the standard Rhino toolset is a huge plus, analysis is just icing on the cake. I was able to recover the cost of the plugin in the first project I used it with, and it’s been saving me time ever since. If there is nothing from McNeel on the horizon for this sort of surfacing is there anything wrong with using an older more effective tool?
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I don’t think most people have any opinion at all about whether it’s easy or not.
But whether easy or not, once productivity and the user experience has improved significantly in other products there will come a day when you will have to improve your own product, regardless of whether it’s easy or not.
I don’t think they feel that they lack the competence, especially once it has been proved that something actually can be done. It’s probably more about priorities, or patents / IM rights (which would be reason enough to claim to never have had access to a copy of VSR within their walls… ). 
// Rolf
I never said they lacked the competence. It is first and foremost a matter of allocating limited development resources to where they have the most ROI. VSR is primarily an automotive modeling tool - although it can certainly be used in ID as well - so to develop those capabilities and expect a decent return, McNeel would need to have a significant penetration into the automotive modeling segment - as well as perhaps one or more people on staff who are experienced automotive modelers to guide them.
–Mitch
I didn’t say it was easy to develop VSR, I wouldn’t know as I’m an end user not a software developer. Frankly, the difficulty is no concern of mine. My sole concern is does this software meet my expectations?
So far the answer to that question is broadly yes, Rhino does what I need it to do but not always painlessly. Consequently, anything that can improve the speed and quality of my work is of interest. From what I’ve seen of VSR, it appears to fit the bill.
So why not just buy a copy of VSR? I may do. In fact, I plan to take a closer look when I have some free time next week (hopefully there is a demo). However, I remain concerned about its long term future. Am I prepared to forgo Rhino V6 if VSR is incompatible? I can’t make that judgement yet and it’s a shame that I may have to.
Hopefully we can agree that we all want Rhino to thrive. I certainly do, but in my view, the core surface modelling toolset could do with some improvement. The little I’ve seen of VSR shows that it can be done. It may be difficult, and it certainly won’t happen overnight but I hope McNeel can make improvements.
I am invested in Rhino so am prepared to wait patiently but not indefinitely.
I asked a friend of mine that works at Autodesk to ask around about the Shape Modeling plug-in for Rhino. He says that there has been no official word one way or the other that he has heard. So the optimists could look at that and say it might be available for V6, and the pessimists would say it’s reached the end of the line.
How’s that for the least helpful post ever? 
Dan
So I’m not alone in that reaction!
I’ve put in 7 full days every week for the last 7 months, and I’m getting tired of spending so much time and effort to produce watertight surface joinery. I think Rhino is just grand on the whole, but I think it should facilitate modeling tasks much easier than it does.
I’m using the Mac version and there are no plugins available at this point to make things more functional. I’ve also been watching presentations of AD’s Fusion 360. Multisurface objects can be manipuated endlessly and remain watertight. This application has t-splines built into it’s DNA, and there some question now of whether the rhino plugin will continue to be developed or supported after awhile.
It’s like having a hot, crazy girlfriend - you can’t leave her alone but she’s sucking the life out of you.
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Mitch, yes some functions might be difficult do establish, and no there are lots which can be easily achieved like:
- Scale view window
- Extrapolate curves and surfaces (… whitout adding control points or segments)
- Flange (… incl. draft angle to given direction)
- Fillets with G3
- mathimatical correct light lines (… no simple stripe projection) with fixed direction
…
As you know: Bezier is subelement of NURBS.
- Norbert.
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ANCHOR EDGE TO CURVE
One thing that would solve one of the most irritating problems is when surfaces refuse to match, or slide apart from each other when a surface is modified. Preventing or warning against this would be gold, like so:
-
AnchorEdgeToCurve. New function to “glue” an edge to a curve, causing subsequent modifications to any related surface to … :
-
Warn for disrupting the anchored edge: When modifying a related surface, and if the edge (or previous Continuity) will be affected (that is, disrupted from its alignment with the anchor causing a glitch or other deformation),
… 2.a A warning is shown, telling the user what will happen (and WHY) if he confirms the change (anchor lost)
… 2.b and/or: suggesting a solution to what is needed in order to preserve the anchored edge (with a button : “Fix as suggested”).
This would do a way with 98% of my problems, or more concrete, what I waste my time on trying to fix.
This problem may have other solutions, but it is one that haunts me the most (and, it seem, is a common problem for us newbies trying to make class a surfaces).
Can I double post as a suggestion for V6?
// Rolf
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There seems to be quite a few modeling processes that require some kind of fixing before they actually do what’s desired. There is way to much effort required to correct the work that’s generated. It’s always in the end attributed to user error, but one has to wonder if rhino is about facilitating design, or testing one’s ability to obsess over techincal issues.
For example the shell command seldom produces a solid object but leaves behind heavy surfaces that require further work and even then as in this vid there’s still some faults to fix. Isn’t the idea of a shell command suppossed to make designing more efficient? In this case it makes design a rather irritatting task of compensating what the application can’t seem to do.
http://www.screencast.com/t/THHrh6G7LT
And is it really necessary to generate some many iso curves on the interior? The same mess happens when a perfectly clean curve is offset.
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The additional control is required to maintain the tolerance you specified.
What is your current absolute modeling tolerance?
If you want the offset surface to have the same control structure as the original, try the Loose command line option.
The Rail Sweeps have a “Simple” option that does a very similar thing too.
Hello,
You could also determine your wall thickness and use the Scale1D command on your outer curve set to create that thickened wall, it usually results in a much cleaner set of surfaces.
Ok, thanks John, I’ll learn this.
Tex.
basically, dispense with the shelling tool and make the interior surface from scaled down curves.
I’ve a modeling difficulty you may have an approach to;
MotorHousing.3dm.zip (1.3 MB)
As you can see from the photo, the housing of this electric motor has stud masses to either side of the the axis. There’s not a sharp edge to be found. I find it daunting to manage a blending between all the sufaces. I managed to get the profile for the stud mass by sweeping 2, but then there’s the need to blend that surface into the spherical housing. At that point I’m simply stopped.
Hi JKayten,
You may have seen this tutorial, but if not, it shows some interesting steps for how to resolve complex (“failed”) overlapping fillets. I haven’t tested it on your model, but it may give you some useful hints. Fast forward till you see a bunch of messy overlapping fillets, and start from there :
[Edit: Clip now starting from 13:16 ]
// Rolf
In the second part he demonstrates an almost identical kind of problem as that of yours, with double fillets crossing each other ( from using Solid \ Fillet Edge \ Blend edge ).
But his approach seems to be to make all fillets in one shot, and then manually fix where the software can’t resolve the complexity. He extracts curves for the surface patches in interesting ways, and ends up with a perfect result.
[Edit: Again, starting from the relevant point in time]
I made a quick attempt to apply the workflow as described in the last video and, as it was said in the video, one may have to try several times to get just the right angles, I got the following result, which is only “almost good”. With a little adjustment of the “tweened” curve in the middle (lower the ridge a bit as to avoid creating a bulge on the top fillet, and a tad bit narrower (wire) cut for the lower fillet as to make a straighter path for the fillet), then the fillet surfaces should join just fine.
Fig.:1 You can see to the far right a “free hand” tweened curve (planar is good enough), and to the left
a straight line attached to a “split edge”.
Fig.:2 Close to good enough:
Fig.:3 The leftover lines were used as anchors for a tangent-tangent curve, which was almost perfect, it needs only to be lowered a bit and then both fillets should match perfectly.
There may be other and better ways to deal with this, but I found the method in the video being a very useful one, well worth learning.
// Rolf
MotorHousing2.zip (869.7 KB)
I know this is somehow OT, since here we’re speaking of G2 blends …
Anyway, here is a simple FilletSrf approach. Obviously, constant radius fillets and G1 continuity.
Cheers
Thanks so much for the help. I’m overwhelmed! The video is very good - reminds me of one by Brain James, but sometimes the same thing described with a different model brings the learning home. As to the fillets, I’d given up on them as too crude to work in this case. Back to the study.
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Well Rolf, it’s been a fine day trying to solve this issue and while I know more than yesterday I still can’t quite get it right - it’s the bubba syndrome I suppose, things don’t sink in as quickly as they should.
What you can see are some attempts that leave unsitely transitions as well as tumor like bulges in place of the nice transitions you produced.
MotorHousing.3dm 2.zip (334.5 KB)
I started over (again) and filleted every edge at once, then trimed away the surfaces and split them as per the vid. (Nice instructional btw - this guy has a very easy manner about him)
I didn’t quite follow what you meant when you said “The leftover lines were used as anchors for a tangent-tangent curve, which was almost perfect, it needs only to be lowered a bit and then both fillets should match perfectly.”
Hi @JKayten,
I have guests so I’m a bit short on time, but I meant the two “extra” lines (small arrows) which I used as a anchor/guide for the BlendCurve (middle arrow).
My first attempt (prev post) wasn’t perfect though, since the line to the right (a handmade “tween”) was drawn as a planar line (no curvature), but in the picture below I quickly “Pulled” that same line to the surface as to get a non-planar curve on the surface, which can then serve as a (better) starting point (for the “middle” curve) due to having curvatures in all directions.
This resulting middle curve, if not having proper curvature settings on each end, can cause the surface after Fillets / Blends or Sweeps, to have a bulge. The curve can be adjusted some but not much, which is why one may have to try to make the surfaces several times to see if it’s good enough. I used the following settings for the middle curve (left & right as pictured) :
Left end : Curvature
Right end: Tangency
Some combinations resulted in a high bulge which extended above the flat top surface.
In the picture below the end result was much better, but still not perfect :
I’m not sure why though, but I noticed that the original file had multiple surfaces at first, which I later deleted, but it seems like not all the surfaces that were left belong to the “right surface layers” after the deletion (they don’t fit very well), which I don’t have the time just now to fix.
But IF that was not the problem in my case (the multiple surfaces messing things up), then there’s still that last resort - to make a Patch in the critical point where the three surfaces converge. For a patch in such places I would recommend the following video, which is just as good and instructive as the “bonnet guy’s” video (at start-time showing the patch in place) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeTiZuSbQz8&feature=youtu.be&t=564
// Rolf