Anyone care to tell me whether I'm overthinking?
In creating hulls, I have to consider many things. One thing I have to consider is the method of port-to-starboard sweeping of objects and the origin of the sweep path. (One-rail sweep, terminatte at object...)
If I sweep a curve to become a surface, and do so from the centerline, it can be difficult to sleuth out lines, forcing me to rely heavily on filtering and color-coding. (My drawings become very, very dense!)
If I sweep a curve to become a surface, and do so from far outboard, say, to port, about 8 meters outboard, so that in ortho I can still see things at the default ortho angle/zoom, then it is easier to create parts.
But, when it becomes time to mirror or trim, sometimes mirroring would seem to be more convenient, if I sweep from y=0. Problem is that I end up with double the piece count.
If I sweep from y=-15, then I have to trim off the excess material. Fortunately, the remainder can still be thickness-modified.
I would like to propose a new sweep-mirror combination tool:
Let's say, in this example, I've got a hull and I'm sweeping profiles that will become deck beams. I don't want to create a beam that has excess material starting from the sweep start (forcing me to trim lots of pieces), and I don't want to sweep from within, at y=0, and mirror and end up with double the number of parts.
So, I want to sweep and have the finished body know it is to be symmetrical about a specificed point. Given it is a Deck Beam, it runs transversely, or perpendicular to the longitudinal axis. So, I would:
-- Sweep a curve or a surface that terminates against the inside of the starboard side shell. We know that it must have a mirror/symmetrical opposite. Before completion of the sweep (or in advance of initiating the sweep), I could toggle or trigger a sweep that has the following options:
-- mirror swept body about a y coordinate
-- construct swept body to fit pre-selected surfaces/solids
In the first case, I could say mirror about y=0, and it would create a starboard termination, but instantly mirror or extend the body to fit between two inner faces of the hull. (Note: The hull may be unibody, or it may be two mirrored parts, user's discretion.)
In the second case, I could use profiles inside or outside of the body (user's discretion, based on density of the model/ease of seeing things without resorting to too much use of filters and layers-on/layers-off features) but designate the contact faces that limit the body.
So, in the second case, I would not need to know nor care about the start point and end point of a body, not have to construct curves (which may not have associativity to the hull if its beam is changed) to aid in resizing the beams, would not have to project curvess into the surface, and so on.
I could put a profile to port only, then indicate the boundary, and say "assume the profile of the deck beam throws/grows parallel to baseline", and say "construct a beam/girder/body and clip it at the hull, using what is designated as the inside face.
But, beams may not terminate always at the sideshell. Some my terminate at the face of a sideshell stiffener. Once those are mirrored, it would be helpful if they, too, could be "boundaries" for the extents of the beams.
Longitudinals and Deck Girders are simpler (for me) as they terminate against bulkheads, and I have no need to terminate them physically there since vertical bulkeads would have the same x-value, easier than dealing with a sideshell that has constant, variable compound curvature.
What would be REALLY kewl is if I could draw one profile, create beam or girder from it, and make it a "class" or part, and then just drag them where I need them, and have the hull told to "auto-clip" the beams. Then, I would not necessarily have to physically trim them and verify the masses changed. It would, hopefully, auto change its weight based on the hull acting as a clipping body. Then, if the hull size goes up or down a skosh, or the stiffening structure undergoes elevation changes, the hull, being a clipping body, would automatically work. This much pretty much is already done in Shark/VCP if the parts are created with an associative termination. But, if the links are broken, it may not be possible anymore to auto-resize the stiffening if the hull shaping curves are modified. I've had this much happen to me.
Anyone care to tell me whether I'm overthinking?
