help the red nose reindeer!

[Claude Boudreau]

This is a drawing I've made using spline, drag corner ,deform contour, ect...
I am trying to create offsets in order to use Vcarve.
The deer's hat seem connected to the top (pompom), but when you zoom in far enough you can see that it's not.
Entity summary dont show a 3 d component on the spline.Still I cant connect it.I have tried drag corner to move it and trim entity to no avail.
It's probably bad drawing practice as I am fairly new to cad drawing.
Can someone give me pointer on how to draw this properly as this was not the only problem I' ve found. Fixed what I could but this one got me, even if I draw another spline I cant seem to be able to connect.

[BurrMan]

Hi Claude,
They ARE actually connected. If you go to your preferences (Part for current drawing, default for always) Display settings, you can crank up the wireframe quality to view the curves differently.

Rememeber that your video card will be dicing everything up into polygons in the view. It wont be able to show a "true curve", so at some type of zoom level, you will see "straight lines", and if there is a curve defined there, then the actual defined geometry will "look off".

Dicing things up at a more finite level will present a closer representation of the actual geometry, but you will be also taxing the system more (Video card working harder to present 100,000 polygons as opposed to 10,000)

On very light models, you can crank things up for a prettier display. On very heavy model, you can lower the settings for a more coarse display, but better performance with the viewport.

Hope that helps.

[BurrMan]

So here is an image with the perfect NURBS circle defined:



And when you zoom in real close, with a very coarse display setting, you can see how the curve is meshed into line segments (Marked here)



So note if those little mesh points were actually connected with the curve value, that they run through the endpoint of the line you have connected.

Also, if you zoom in to this level, and then change the wireframe display settings to very high, you will see the curve actually move into the intersection and appear connected...

[Claude Boudreau]

So here is an image with the perfect NURBS circle defined:



And when you zoom in real close, with a very coarse display setting, you can see how the curve is meshed into line segments (Marked here)



So note if those little mesh points were actually connected with the curve value, that they run through the endpoint of the line you have connected.

Also, if you zoom in to this level, and then change the wireframe display settings to very high, you will see the curve actually move into the intersection and appear connected...

Right now, at home, I cant open my file(trial version),but if I remember well I was not able to create an offset for the closed island bellow the pompom. I had use the break many on all the drawing but the spline did not divide the pompom where the spline join it.
So I was unable to select the entities forming that closed island in order to use the offset function.
I will check it in my shop tomorrow.
But thanks BurrMan, enlightening as always.

[jrmach]

Try using arc fit.Then use trim screen.Then break many,then delete xtra,then contour.Thats if I understood you correctly.Good luck.

[BurrMan]

The file works for me as-is... Offset and all.. Maybe some specifics about the values trying, that are failing?