I’ve put together a decent hull for my current project, an old sailboat. In the process of taming the all-curves geometry, I’ve started really paying attention to the regularity of the subjacent lattice (mesh?) that appears when fluidity of form starts emerging, and have built a volume that could solve my planking intentions for said hull…
Is there a script out there that could spare me the task of joining 1,400 vertices by hand, and the damage inflicted to the smoothness of the curves by the line tool?
I’m not quite done with the pattern yet, but am pretty confident that it can be whipped into shape, then used to its full extent, and showcased by an extension that shows desirable, but normally hidden, portions of the construction’s underpinnings…
If the tool exists, what’s it called?
Not quite understanding what it is you need.
Do you mean something like this?
Or maybe this?
Yeah, pretty much…
The only problem is with the forepeak, having the lines all join at the vertex, whereas they run parallel the rest of the way. Maybe if I choose a different point in the triangle, or do that part by hand.
Anyway, thanks for this, I have the plug-ins already, now to understand the quad face tools interface.
You should look to getting your curves working together in groups of four, so that you have 2 rails and 2 profiles, this will give you a ‘grid’.
I expect you’re going to have to do a bunch of manual work if you want to create the lines for the planking. In reality the planks won’t end with points at the bow. If they did, there’d be nothing through which to secure them in the rabbet on the stem. The planks will taper a bit toward the hood ends as well as toward the stern and will be wider somewhere around midships. The edges of the planks won’t be parallel to each other.
Are you thinking of a carvel (smooth planked) or lapstrake? In both cases the planks need to be fitted to each other as they wind around the compound curve of the hull. Carvel is a bit simpler as the seams don’t show so it doesn’t matter how they look. For lapstrake the seams/laps are visible and the design of their shapes is very important to how the finished boat will look.
Fortunately, it’s a carvel…
I dont think I’ll make the planks into individual, closed volumes. Just lines on the surface of the hull and at the ends of the planks, where they’re visible around the transom.
But I might go the whole nine yards, depending on what I can finagle out of TIG’s Extrusion toolset,
dutifully “killing” my model. Contrary to the pros, I don’t view a low polygon count as an absolute necessity.
You do like a challenge. If you do make the planks as “closed volumes” you might see how Joint Push/Pull works on the entire skin and then separate it into planks. You should be able to get the rolling bevels on the edges of the planks to add realism and polygons. 
You misunderstand, it can be as complex as you want, but the extrude edges plugin works better when you have 4 edges to work with.
If you use three is makes it squeeze into a corner.
Yeah, I had a nice surprise seeing how well Fredo6’s Joint Push-Pull works once the surface to be treated is reasonably sorted out. Should be as snap with individual planks. Should be…
You can, of course, go as far as you wish just for the sake of the challenge and satisfaction of making the SketchUp model. But keep in mind that in building a real boat the planks have to be spiled to fit. The drawings just serve as a starting point because the real boards always come out a bit different when you put them onto the boat!
Yeah, I’m aware; This whole project is based on a rebuild of a 1907 drawn British gaff cutter, which I’m following on YouTube. The shape is derived from the table of offsets and the original drawings.
The pictures uploaded in this thread a bit earlier show the warping needed to get basically square planks to adapt to 3D curves. Joint Push-Pull will come in handy here, let’s hope that the planks conform together once they’re “fleshed out”.
No, I’d gotten that; I was just referring to a “Sage”'s reaction, in another thread, to my making a 3D model of a non-skid metal surface, instead of using a pre-made, applied texture.
I’m working it out, thanks…
What’s with the “Soften” pane? Which plug-in is it for: Soften/Unsoften, Soften Edges, or another?
How does it differ from the built-in version?
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