Lofting Help

[militantmandy]

Hello!

 

First post here, so sorry if this isn't the correct section.

 

Basically, I have a 2d polyline (in dxf format) that has z heights. I want to loft this line in viz. Now if I have or draw a spline, this is no problem. However, for some reason, viz simply will not allow me to use this line a my path.

 

Can anyone suggest why this is or what else i could do? I have tried converting the line in cad, but nothing seems to make any difference!

 

Any help will be much appreciated!

[militantmandy]

I have now spoken to Ted Boardman and he's kindly offered me a solution which i'll post below.

 

 

"It's not a line actually, it's 3 lines on top of each other, which will be impossible to weld because it's self-intersecting. I tried to clean it up manually and it takes too long. It's easy, but just hand work.

 

I'd suggest simply turning vertex snap on in Max/VIZ then recreating the line by snapping to this shape. This will ensure a continuous line and will allow you to clean up the vertices that are not necessary to define the shape.

 

Even if you fix this existing shape it would be very inefficient as a loft path because there are multiple segments define many of the straight sections. This creates extra 3D geometry in the loft that could bring rendering to its knees.

 

There used to be something in Acad called Express Tools that would help clean the existing line up, but won't remove unnecessary vertices."

 

About to try this now!

 

Thanks Ted!