VS:CreateSurfacefromCurvesNetwork

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Description

This function will create a NURBS surface from a network of selected intersecting curves in the document

FUNCTION CreateSurfacefromCurvesNetwork : BOOLEAN;

def vs.CreateSurfacefromCurvesNetwork():
    return BOOLEAN

Remarks

(Orso, 2011 Jan. 01) The rountine fails:

• upon invalid objects in the active selection. Before creating the curves through CreateNurbsCurve you need then to deselect all using DSelectAll. If used in PIO deselecting only affects the objects created during the PIO code. After creating the needed curve network through repeated calls of CreateNurbsCurve you can launch CreateSurfacefromCurvesNetwork.
• on open curve networks. Be careful that your network is perfectly closed.
• often (but not always) on curves whose vertexes don't reside on a plane. It is advisable to set all vertex of the curves forming the network to z-values on a common plane, otherwise the surface even if generated is faulty and displays an excessive amount of vertexes (BTW, this happens also using the command Create Surface from Curves on drawing). A curve network whose z-values reside on a plane will generate the simplest surface, which can be then refined in the z-values as needed.

(Orso, 2010 Dec. 29) This is one of those routines that doesn't respond to LNewObj. You can access the generated surface through PrevObj setting a temporary object after the call.

{ draws a triangle as NURBS curve, converts it to NURBS Surface and tests LNewObj on this last obj }
PROCEDURE CreateNurbsSurf;
VAR
	h : HANDLE;
	pStart : VECTOR;
BEGIN
	GetPt(pStart.x, pStart.y); { fetch starting pt from user }

	{ draw edgy NURBS curve }
	h := CreateNurbsCurve(pStart.x -1m, pStart.y, pStart.z, TRUE, 1);
		AddVertex3D(h, pStart.x +1m, pStart.y, pStart.z);
		AddVertex3D(h, pStart.x, pStart.y +1m, pStart.z);
		AddVertex3D(h, pStart.x -1m, pStart.y, pStart.z);
	
	IF CreateSurfacefromCurvesNetwork THEN BEGIN
		IF YNDialog('try getting a handle to the new NURBS surface using "LNewObj"?') THEN
			h := LNewObj { I expect LNewObj to be the Surface }
		ELSE BEGIN	
			Locus(pStart.x, pStart.y); { temporary obj, you might want to delete it }
			h := PrevObj(LNewObj); { this fetches the Surface }
		END;

		AlrtDialog(Concat( 'Handle "h" should be of type 113 (NURBS surface), now check what I get:', chr(13), GetType(h) ))
	END;
END;
Run(CreateNurbsSurf);

Version

Availability: from VectorWorks 10.0