9

UV Loft Surface 1201
Using perpendicular curves to create a UV loft surface
If t he U and V curves intersect, the UV loft
surfaceinterpolatesallthecurves.Ifthecurves
don’t intersect, the lofted surface lies somewhere
between the U and V curves. In general, UV loft
works best if the ends of all the curves in one
direction lie on the two end curves in the other
direction, as in the illustration. UV loft does not
work well if the curves in both directions ar e
closed.
Note: The Make Loft (page 1–1234) dialog
(displayedbytheMakeLoftbuttonontheSurface
Common rollout for surface sub-objects) no w lets
youconvertasurfacetoaUVloftaswellasaU
loft. In addition, you can use point curves instead
of CV curves for the new loft lattice. If you use
point curves for a UV loft, turning on the Fuse
Points option g uarantees that the U and V curves
intersect.
Automatic Cur ve Atta chment
When you create a UV loft, you can select c urves
that are not already sub-objects of the active
NURBS model. You can select another curve or
spline (page 1–266) object in the scene. When you
select that curve, it attaches to the current object as
if you had used the Attach button (page 1–1120).
Wa rn in g : If the curve you attach is a sub-object of
anotherNURBSmodel,theentiremodel(thatis,the
curve’s parent NURBS object) is attached as well.
Asyoumovethemouseoveracurvethatisnot
part of the active NURBS object, the cursor
changes shape to indicate that you can pick the
curve, but the curve is not highlighted in blue.
Procedures
To create a UV lof t:
1.
Create the curves that o
utline the surface
you want to create.
2. ClicktoturnonUVLoftinthetoolboxoron
theCreateSurfacesrollout.
3. Click each of the curves in the U dimension,
then right-click. Cl
ick each of the curves in
the V dimension, t hen right-click again to end
creation.
As you click curves, their names appear in the
lists on the UV Loft S
urface creation rollout.
The order in which you click the curves can
affect the shape of the UV loft surface.
In either dimension, you can click the same
curvemorethanonc
e. This can help you create
aclosedUVloft.
To create a UV loft with automatic attach (example):
1.
From the Create panel, create three or more
independent CV or
point NURBS curves.
2. Go to the Modify pa
nel, and click to turn on
UV Loft in the NURBS toolbox.
3. Select the curves in the appropriate order for
the loft.
The UV loft is created. You don’t need to
collapse the cur
ves to a NURBS surface or
Attach them to an existing NURBS model.
Asyoumovethemouseoveracurvethatisnot
partoftheactiveNURBSobject,thecursor