It would be nice if it were possible to select a surface-related curve along with its associated net-forming control points, ctrl-drag it to some distance between (but not crazy-crossing-over distances that would form system-crashing self-intersecting situations), and have that new curve be perfectly embedded as if it were there when the surface (ruled or skin) was created.

Also, it would be nice if any existing "fairing curves" (curves there for visualization but not originally embedded in or part of the original surface) could be selected, and when the control points are dragged, they form an additional net-forming curve, so the user does not need to project a new spline into the surface (which causes far more control points than a copied sister curve).

It also would be nice if a duplicated curve could be dragged to a desired position and told to "embed" itself, essentially fairing itself into the surface as the surface is, but limit itself to the SAME number of control points the parent curve has, not how the surface is bent or shaped.

This implies "add"/"replace" functionality to a surface, not just a solid, and implies that for most cases, the existing surface reshapes according to the "replacement"/'adding" curve.

If' I've overlooked something in the existing feature set of SLT, somebody please inform me.

Thanks!

Background:

In designing hull or aircraft fuselages, some distances between curves will skew the smoothness and cause "valleys" between stations. To get rid of valleys, one either has to adjust the distances between existing stations, or add a new curve.

But:

-- Adjusting distances betwen stations could upset all other to-this-point shaping or fairing (unless the curves or control points of other curves are locked?)

-- Adding a new station/control curve to a surface means throwing out the original surface and recreating it. But, if a large amount of work has been done using that survace, then it seems to me that that would destroy associativity

I thought there was a "replace surface" function in SLT, but I must be overlooking it. At this stage, a solid is not in the model, so replacing curves and surfaces is not possible.

Also, when a curve is translate-copied, the Undo stack/dialog should not say "Undo Move"; it should refer to undoing a "translate-copy", since any distraction could make the user forget a translate copy happened, not a move. When the model is lightweight, it's easy to undo and redo, and fairly painless. But, in an evolved, dense model, that undo/redo could come with a penalty of 40 seconds to 10 minutes, depending on what's associated in the model.

Well, Spline on Surface is nice in that it acts as a "sign post" to eliminate excess guessing about the shape of a curve at a particular location.

But, I'll have to keep looking for the possible existence of a tool that makes the curve part of the surface so that it can be further control-point-dragged to reshape the surface for removing hollows or humps without bebuilding the surface just to embed that curve.

Also, even when the control points of a Spline-on-Surface curve are selected, they do not activate or present the Gripper controls. Toggling the Gripper off and back on does not expose the Gripper's controls.

Thanks for any input!