Need improved spline tools!

[gaggle]

This wouldn't happen to be something more suited for AutoCAD? I don't actually know that program, what you ask for just sounds kind of in the vein of something I'd expect a proper CAD program would handle.

You can always take it back into MAX once the plans have been cleaned up.

Anyway, just a thought..

[moroten]

Erm, I need to do this in Max. Other apps isnt really an option.
Anyone else have a clue?

TIA !
/Daniel

[Zlemr]

what about the alignment tool? doesnt that do the trick? or did i misunderstand you?

[Transform Gizmo]

This wouldn't happen to be something more suited for AutoCAD? I don't actually know that program, what you ask for just sounds kind of in the vein of something I'd expect a proper CAD program would handle.
very true

its unfortunate that autocad isnt an option, because autocad and arch desktop would be much better for precise drawing.

[moroten]

The architect drawing is imported from archicad and my job is to visualize it with 3dsmax. I get the imported splines alright but they're full of unwelded, superfluous verts which in some cases just can be deleted, in other cases are vital to the shape integrity of a spline and thus must be integrated.

The Align tool is just a relative device. It doesn't care about absolute coordinates, just the precis coord of some other object.

So, I need a basic 'translate these verts to N pos Y' functionality.

It seems SO simple but still cant be done with the TypeIn dialog despite it can be done with multiple objects!

Thanks for the help so far, but I still need a viable option.
Anyone else??

-Daniel

[fred_bock]

Mmmm


do you have time to redraw the lines on the archicad file.. import them again, it's better to start it well then correct it later! :hmm:

[obi_]

I'm not sure if I understand your problem. If what you have is a lot of points in different Y coords and you want them all aligned in the same Y all at the same time, what I'd do is scale them non-uniformly (type "0" in the type-in Y value), and they'll be aligned in the same horizontal line, and then just move them to the desired Y coord. But maybe I didn't quite understand your problem. Perhaps if you could illustrate it with a screen capture...

[moroten]

No, no. Sorry if I'm confusing the few souls who actually try to help me out!

I got lots of splines that make up the house/roads/area contours. These splines are all in the same plane, at the Y zero.

What I want to do, is to elevate bunches of the spline vertices to certain heights. For instance, the road verts to 20 meters height by just typing the Y value in a dialog box like the transform Type-In box.

But, I cant do that since those Type-In box fields are grayed out for spline verts. And I cant convert the splines to Mesh / Poly since they are not enclosed shapes.

Thanks in advance!
-Daniel

[AJ]

I think I know what you're trying to do - but I'm not 100%

First let me see if I've understood:

You have a load of splines (in Max) that form the structure of the/a house - directly imported from the splines that are used for the plans for this house I'm guessing - from a CAD program.

These splines have more verts to describe the shape than you need.

Now - this is where I get a little puzzled:


What I want to do, is to elevate bunches of the spline vertices to certain heights. For instance, the road verts to 20 meters height by just typing the Y value in a dialog box like the transform Type-In box.


I'm assuming from this that all of the splines that make up the house/plot/roads you are going to model, are joined as one object? And the problem you're having is that you can't get all of the verts that make up the road to move accurately to the same location (20m up in this case) without selecting each vert one by one...?

Well, if the verts that make up the road are flat in one axis - which I assume they are, then why not select the splines that make up the road (or to put it more simply, select all of the splines that you want to move together), and detach them. This will create a seperate object that consists of the splines that make up that part (in this case, the road), which you can then select and move with the transform Type-In box (without needing to go into any of it's sub-object levels)...

Again, I'm not 100% sure if this is what you mean - so if I'm completely barking up the wrong tree then please correct my interpretation, and I'll try again! ;) :D

[NNNSlogan]

I'm getting the feeling that Max could use a lot more precision tools for manipulating splines/patches. I've been having a hard time with it myself trying to get things to line up right. I'm afraid patches/splines may have been left behind in development in favor of NURBS and poly modeling.

I just want the snapping to work properly on the handles, or keyboard input to move the handles to specific locations.

I wish I could find a decent patch modeling tutorial that doesn't rely on surface tools.

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