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Old 5th October 2007, 04:13 PM   #1
edi
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Default airplanes for ClearView and CAD

Hello,

after playing around a bit with AC3D I just had to get it! As said in the headline, I want to use it to make airplanes for the ClearView flight simulator, but then I'd also like to use the design for further CAD operations (via DXF export).

Here are my problems/questions so far:

1) While the planes look more or less ok in AC3D, a lot of surfaces are missing when loaded into ClearView. I have checked the normals and am completely clueless here.

2) When adding textures to some surfaces the textures get distorted (in AC3D). I don't know why and haven't found a way around. (BTW, the distorted textures are not related to the surfaces not showing up in ClearView.)

3) When shoving the selection rectangle together in the texture editor that pops up with F10 it is not possible to pull it apart again (under linux at least, don't know about windows).

4) For export, I'd like to be able to export all of the orthogonal views into 2D CAD. Can that be done?

Thanks a lot for your time!

Cheers

Edi

PS: The relevant files are on
http://www.aerodromerc.de/cv/sidecar.ac (my first try)
http://www.aerodromerc.de/cv/tripe1.ac (second try)
http://www.aerodromerc.de/cv/tripe1texture.jpg (textures for tripe1.ac)
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Old 5th October 2007, 06:16 PM   #2
lisa
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Default Re: airplanes for ClearView and CAD

Quote:
Originally Posted by edi View Post
1) While the planes look more or less ok in AC3D, a lot of surfaces are missing when loaded into ClearView. I have checked the normals and am completely clueless here.
Unfortunately, I don't know anything about ClearView, but I'd bet it's your surface winding order. AC3D is a bit unusual in that the surface normal is not bound to the vertex winding order--they don't have to match. If your normals look correct, winding order would be the very next thing I would check.

Try selecting the surfaces that are causing problems, and select "Change Vertex Order" from the Surfaces menu. Hopefully, that will fix it.


Quote:
Originally Posted by edi View Post
2) When adding textures to some surfaces the textures get distorted (in AC3D). I don't know why and haven't found a way around. (BTW, the distorted textures are not related to the surfaces not showing up in ClearView.)
Maybe something wrong with the UV map? Try re-applying the texture coordinates.

Quote:
Originally Posted by edi View Post
4) For export, I'd like to be able to export all of the orthogonal views into 2D CAD. Can that be done?
You could cheat by squashing the model. DXF is plain text, so you can tweak the file in a text editor after. (Depends on how big your model is how much of a pain that would be.)

Also, try exporting the 3D DFX and see if your 2D program might handle it already. A lot of 2D programs will pull in a 3D DXF and let you select which projection you want on import--Corel Draw does this.
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Old 6th October 2007, 05:52 AM   #3
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Default Re: airplanes for ClearView and CAD

Quote:
Originally Posted by edi View Post

1) While the planes look more or less ok in AC3D, a lot of surfaces are missing when loaded into ClearView. I have checked the normals and am completely clueless here.
Hi,

I've downloaded your files, you have some geometry problems here and there (mostly overlapping surfaces). Or maybe it's still very WIP (?).

Also you have a lot of Ngons (5+ sided surfaces) ... what format do you use to import your model into ClearView (which I don't know anything about BTW) ?
If you use a 3ds file, it might be ok, but with an untriangulated OBJ file it could leads to problems (missing surfaces) ... not every apps support Ngons.
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Old 6th October 2007, 06:01 AM   #4
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Default Re: airplanes for ClearView and CAD

Quote:
Originally Posted by lisa

Maybe something wrong with the UV map? Try re-applying the texture coordinates.
Thanks for your answer, Lisa,

but I am not sure what that means. The oblong surface on the plane looks somehow warped in the texture editor and I don't know how to change that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by luuckyy View Post
Hi,

I've downloaded your files, you have some geometry problems here and there (mostly overlapping surfaces). Or maybe it's still very WIP (?).

Also you have a lot of Ngons (5+ sided surfaces) ... what format do you use to import your model into ClearView (which I don't know anything about BTW) ?
If you use a 3ds file, it might be ok, but with an untriangulated OBJ file it could leads to problems (missing surfaces) ... not every apps support Ngons.
Thanks for your answers!

The .ac format is the format loaded in ClearView. Of course, it's very WIP as I still do not know how to do some of the things. So I'll try triangulating and see whether it helps?

And how do I track down the overlapping surfaces which aren't supposed to be there (I am aware of them on the cowling)?

Cheers

Edi
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Old 6th October 2007, 01:21 PM   #5
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Default Re: airplanes for ClearView and CAD

Triangulating did the trick for the missing surfaces! Thanks a lot. I'll try to track down the texture issues now.

Cheers

Edi
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Old 6th October 2007, 03:11 PM   #6
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Default Re: airplanes for ClearView and CAD

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Triangulating did the trick for the missing surfaces!
Happy to hear that !
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Old 6th October 2007, 03:24 PM   #7
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Default Re: airplanes for ClearView and CAD

While I do not yet quite understand *what* I am doing, playing with the UV map has solved my texture problems. Well, it is still not quite what I want in ClearView, but it renders correctly now in ac3d, so I think I'll ask the ClearView people about that other stuff.

Thanks again to everybody

Edi
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Old 6th October 2007, 11:07 PM   #8
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Default Re: airplanes for ClearView and CAD

Glad you got it working!
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