Hi Bill,

I have been looking at a 2 rail sweep around 2 (untrimmed) Ellipse (offset). I find that the outcome differs depending on what direction the Ellipse take, but also on what side of the cross section I select.

I will post some examples (with model file/vid) probably tomorrow,.. I need a rest from this for now :)


Regards,

- Steve

Slightly off topic.

I wanted to see what would happen with CU V4 and a 2 rail sweep around 2 ellipses - the result was garbage, but I tried top make a quicktime movie using the built in quicktime tool and whatever settings I had (fps / keyframes / compression) the result was always a cruddy movie that ran for no longer than a second or so. What settings are others using ?

Nick, if you think $69 is too steep- there's also Jing;

http://www.jingproject.com/

Just downloaded and am demoing [URL="http://www.shinywhitebox.com/ishowuhd/main.html"]iShowU[/URL] $30 - $60 depending on version. Has the advantage over Snaps Pro X that the process is instantaneous.

10.6 requires a wait till September, I need this now. The built in tool is bound to be more limited than a dedicated tool. Look at all the screen shot apps out there. My fav is [URL="http://yellowmug.com/snapndrag/"]SnapNDrag[/URL] free or $5 for the pro version (best $5 I ever spent).

Hehe- I use snapNdrag all the time! It's indispensable! :D

I recommend Screenshot Pilot for the PC too. :)

http://www.colorpilot.com/screenshot.html

Tim appears to only reply to bug reports where the bugs can be fixed easily. I doubt this is an easy fix, so it will probably be ignored by Tim.

This CAD is quite bad. :(

I sent one report in to Punch support. I have had 2 replies, the first stating the problem could not be reproduced, the second about 9 hours later indicated this problem is now known by them (as the pics I attached to the E-mail have been removed and "added to Incident".) The reply also stated I would hear from them within 24 hours, but as that is now almost 3 days ago, I will presume they are awaiting the return of Tim ??
I will not hold my breath. :(

Hi Steve,

>>Changing the Rails to different Types (B-spline/Int spline) does change the >>result, but it should be more consistent as changing the type does bring its >>own problems with the spline moving.

I've made several changes for two rail sweeping. One of the changes was a correction to how the first derivative was getting calculated in some of the alignment portion of the code. That was in the 838 build. (Force regen will update existing parts as in the qt movie link below...)

The next thing I did was expose some options in the Edit Objects dialog box for two rail sweeps. I did this in the 55x builds (shark FX v6) as we get some more testing on these changes. I put in a check box for the Maintain Height (currently an option only at creation) and a new option to turn on/off arc length distribution. Currently arc length distribution is used to position/align the sections along the rails.

http://www.csi-concepts.com/Dem.../tworailsweepoptions.mov

If anyone has some more 2 rail sweep examples, send them off and I will test to confirm.


Tim

>>essentially what you are saying is that we need to use the "Force resolve >>links" command more?

No. However if you have a object created before 838 and want it to update to any post 838 changes, you can use the force resolve links command to make it current.



Tim

Tim.

Did this fix get fully implemented, because VC Pro v8 (or v7) doesn't have the Arc Length Distribution, or the Maintain Height options available when editing a Two Rail Sweep Solid in Object Properties?

The result from this tool also seems incorrect if you try sweeping the triangle along the two curves in the attached file.


Martin.