However:
The real point is does it actually mater one way or another? because if you want to extrude the cyrves out such as in case of floorplans or something you dont actually gain anything form merging the curves at all.
It might seem counter intuitive but its true, just like the illusion on oneness happens in 2d by placing the curves in continuous proximity the same holds true in 3d. FOr the reason why you above need manual work is the sorting of the data.
Whet you do is just extrude everything, if your target is polygon then your kindof set right now since all you need to do is combine and merge the planes, run conform and all the above discussion has wanished into thin air. And you never needed to touch the issue of oneness.
Because it never was a priority for your end result.
So one needs to think is this step there because the user asks for it or because he needs it for something. ![]()
This is the sort of thing the people hav inbuilt in their abstraction layar that does not necceserily make sense.
QUOTE(Naughty @ 11/05/07, 12:52 PM) [snapback]275956[/snapback]
we KNOW they're not continuous curves in autoCad, that's the point of his question and my reply..
No we dont (we can assume but the user never said thet the source is 100+ just the the curves he has are), the exportation process might have just split them up. This happens alot if the data goes trough a iges or dxf pass at at some point and the datas been shipping away in the realm between software. Even autocad knows how to build the loops into one just as well as illustrator (by doiung a color fill inside autocad and then pronting this out will create the areal piece you want) if you wish to do that. However nobody ever does.
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he's asking HOW he can make them a continuous curve.
Elementary he cant, not without deciding quite a lot manually. However it is quit quick and semiatomatic. But not fully.
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Also Illustrator has the ability to combine separate curves into a single curve and we know for a fact that AI curves come into Maya as a single curves so Illustrator would in fact be a perfect solution in this case if he has access to it...
Yes this would work out assuming 2 conditions are met. 1 the curves all actually coincide and form expected loops. Which they should do in this case its rather easy to use the live paint bucket to find the regions. Same could be done with pathfinder. the second condition is that you actually have illustrator. (offcourse all vector drawing programs i know of can do this maya included)
However this is not still a perfect solution it still involves a lot of non automatic work to separate the ins and outs and extra lines etc, but it will make it faster yes.
The same operation isnt hard to do inside maya either its a bit of code tough but basic outlining idea is to start selecting in loops by first finding closest edge and then continue clockwise by searching each segment and merging a copy of them together.
Theres a trick to this however since maya indeed does have this algorithm builtin, make the curves part of a plane then use the trim tool to find the shell, then select each shells edgecurves copy them now ytou know theese merge into one line and its a straight iteration. Still needs user input tough.
PS Im starting to lean towerds not assuming anything from other users anymore, because quit frankly i have no idea what their starting level is ![]()