Pwr_Bevel help needed

[Uli]

I am wondering is either i'm doing something bad or the plugin is just not working...

I do a simple Pwr_Railswp, draw a Pwr_circle, trim my surface with the circle, select the circle shape on my surface to make a Pwr_Bevel and i get very weird results..

Here are all the images needed to explain :)


http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/6836/image01wi5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/6343/image02bd4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9359/image03ob5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/8760/image04cn7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/839/image05vv5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/5769/image06oa3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

What's up with that??

[nPower_Michael]

Hello Uli,

Thank you for posting. The plug-in is indeed misbehaving. By default the plug-in *should* be rotating the bevel profile along the rail curve (the circular segment). In this case it is not doing that, resulting in the self-intersecting surface you are seeing. We are looking into a fix right now, and will post further developments here.

[Uli]

Thanks for your reply. I really hope to see a fix soon :)

[nPower_Michael]

Depending on what you are using the bevel tool for, a possible temporary work around might be to use a rail sweep instead. The general idea is to manually create what would have been the bevel profile shape (ie line, half circle, etc) as a sketch and use it as a shape in a rail sweep. Use what would have been the bevel rail as the rail sweep rail.

Sometimes it can be tricky to get the rail sweep to recognize the the trimmed edge you want to bevel as a rail, in which case you might need to use the following trick:

Extract an instance of the original trim curve. Select the trimmed surface, activate the curve projection tool, and pick the instance of the trim curve. The resulting projection object should be pickable as a railsweep rail.

On a side note, if you are using a circle as the trim/bevel shape, try to orient any control points on the circle object away from the surface if possible. Sometimes bevels / sweeps behave a little oddly at this control point.

[nPower_Michael]

Here's a fast way to fix this issue. Select your Bevel object and go into Modify. Under Operator Parameters, select the comp sketch sub object (probably something like "0) Rail: NuEd_5 Pwr_Trim02") corresponding to the trim edge. Then, go up to the Modifier List window and select the Pwr_CmpSkt sub object there. In its Modify window, go to Tangency Parameters and switch "Along Isocurves" to "Perpendicular to Edge" in the second drop down.

The "Along Isocurves" setting causes the problem because it tries to orient the bevel profile along the surface's UV lines. If you select the original Trim surface and go under Viewport Display Settings and switch to "Curves" and set Lines U and Lines V each to something (say 10), you can see these Isocurves.

Let us know if this addresses your Beveling issues.

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

Michael,
Wouldn't it be easier to just go into the sub-Operand settings for the picked edge (since it creates a Cmp_SKt) for you and change the settings there rather than having to redo it?

-Eric

[nPower_Michael]

You're right, that is definitely faster. I've edited the previous post to reflect that approach.

[Uli]

Thanks guys, i'll give it a shot and post back

[Uli]

Thanks that worked for me :)