Create Convex Surface Object - odd result

jerrylynnb · 12th September 2007, 03:22 AM

I wanted to create the inside of an irregular ditch. I used the polyline feature and drew curved lines from the top of the ditch at one end going down and up to the other side. I moved down the ditch a bit, and drew another line from top, down into the ditch, and back up again. I repeated this several times, making each curve different from all the others so that it would appear not to be dug with a machine, but, by hand and therefore not smooth nor even.

Then I used vertex mode, selected all the vertices from all the lines, and then selected Create Convex Surface Object, but the result was wierd. The bottom part of the ditch was like I wanted, where every vertex from adjacent lines was connected and a bunch of triangles were formed, but on the sides of the ditch, many vertices were ignored, and widely separated vertices were connected bypassing all my hand-created vertices in between. Why did it do this? How can I get it to connect each vertex to the nearest one on an adjacent line?

Also, I didn't want it to close the top, nor the ends - how do I prevent that from happening? I tried to delete the top by deleting the uppermost vertices, but, since it had skipped over most of the vertices on the side, this wound up deleting too much of the sides on of the ditch.

This feature is what I have heard called "lofting" elsewhere, and I was thinking it would figure out more precisely which vertices should be matched up with those closest on adjacent lines - am I missing something?

12th September 2007, 03:22 AM	#1
jerrylynnb Member Advanced member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 30	Create Convex Surface Object - odd result I wanted to create the inside of an irregular ditch. I used the polyline feature and drew curved lines from the top of the ditch at one end going down and up to the other side. I moved down the ditch a bit, and drew another line from top, down into the ditch, and back up again. I repeated this several times, making each curve different from all the others so that it would appear not to be dug with a machine, but, by hand and therefore not smooth nor even. Then I used vertex mode, selected all the vertices from all the lines, and then selected Create Convex Surface Object, but the result was wierd. The bottom part of the ditch was like I wanted, where every vertex from adjacent lines was connected and a bunch of triangles were formed, but on the sides of the ditch, many vertices were ignored, and widely separated vertices were connected bypassing all my hand-created vertices in between. Why did it do this? How can I get it to connect each vertex to the nearest one on an adjacent line? Also, I didn't want it to close the top, nor the ends - how do I prevent that from happening? I tried to delete the top by deleting the uppermost vertices, but, since it had skipped over most of the vertices on the side, this wound up deleting too much of the sides on of the ditch. This feature is what I have heard called "lofting" elsewhere, and I was thinking it would figure out more precisely which vertices should be matched up with those closest on adjacent lines - am I missing something?