Let’s continue with the exercise we started last post, and work on the modeling.
The first surface we’ll do is the Network Surface. You need to select two sets of curves, which have different directions. Once you finish selecting the first set of surfaces, you’ll click enter (or whichever method you have for this), and then the second set of surfaces.
Let’s take a look at the Ribbon. The option for Surface Associativity is on. This means that if you change the position of the elements that originated the surface, the Network Surface will also change. The control lies within the original curves. This is a great differentiator with strict NURBS modelers, which create a NURBS surface once you click OK. Please note that you can also do this, by selecting NURBS Creation. In this case, all associativity is lost.
Let’s create our first surface using the Network command on the Create panel in the Surface tab. Remember to select the first set of curves in one direction, and then the other set of curves, after clicking Enter.
If you have Properties open (if not, you can get it in many ways, but a simple one is through the Quick Access Toolbar), you will notice that if you select the surface, it is not only a Surface, but it’s called a Network Surface. AutoCAD’s surfaces (if not created with the NURBS Creation option) are explicit surfaces. It means that at any time, they keep the properties of the method they were created with. We’ll see more value to this when we check the loft and the patch.
So we have the base of the case, but we now need the sides. We’ll use the Loft command. LOFT has been around since 2007, but it has been enhanced, so let’s check some of these enhancements. In our example, we are going to use a curve and a surface’s edge. In the past, loft was only possible with open or closed curves, and they had to be planar, at least the initial and final profile.
Starting in 2011, we can loft non planar profiles, and when one of the profiles is a surface’s edge, we can control the continuity.
Let's wait for next post to learn all about LOFT and continuity. Next time, I'll post from Mexico City, while doing the training for the channel, on both AutoCAD and Suites.
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