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Deform (New Custom Feature!) 🆕
MichaelPascoe
Member Posts: 2,846 PRO
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 CADSharp &
RENDERCAD have sponsored a new custom feature:
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Deform
It deforms a parts and surfaces via profile sections or lattice grids along a path. Useful when you need to bend, twist, and scale parts after they have already been modeled.
Note: It is still a work in progress but I think its good enough for first release.
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/303775db976a02780499bec3/w/80a914faf16b9cdbd2f23…
Special thanks to:
- @Derek_Van_Allen_BD for laying the b-spline surfacing groundwork with Tween Surfaces.
- @vesa_timonen for laying the general geometry groundwork with Flex
- @EvanReese for laying the manipulator groundwork with Freeform Spline
- And last but not least thanks to GPT 5.5 for writing this entire feature; for those who couldnt tell via the 5000 lines of code… 🤣
RENDERCAD
rendercad.ai - Photorealistic product rendering.
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6
Comments
Could it be? My 4 dimensional dreams realized at last? And I didn't have to write the whole thing myself? It's beautiful.
Derek Van Allen | Engineering Consultant | Meddler@Derek_Van_Allen_BD There is still work to do. if you want a challenge, see if you can get it to work on the test studios.
RENDERCAD
rendercad.ai - Photorealistic product rendering.
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@MichaelPascoe what a madman! This is ridiculously cool to see. I'm going to need a tutorial on the UI. So many levers to flip and knobs to twiddle.
The Onsherpa | Reach peak Onshape productivity
www.theonsherpa.com
I'll definitely poke around and see how it runs compared to the FFD concept that I did that lacked the surface stitching.
Derek Van Allen | Engineering Consultant | Meddler@EvanReese alright, yeah, needs a quick demo / tutorial. I'll try to whip one up later.
@Derek_Van_Allen_BD It seems to do ok with main body protrusions but has difficulty with small protrusions and pockets or large pockets.
Almost got the acanthus leaf test studio to work and then it digressed again and looks like it does now.
Either way, this is at least a starting point (or a black hole) and the closest thing I've seen so far to a full deformation feature.
RENDERCAD
rendercad.ai - Photorealistic product rendering.
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This is both absolutely amazing and somewhat frustrating at the same time. I wish whatever underlying magic wouldn't make the surfaces so heavy and wouldn't do crazy things at the ends. This example is only using a simple single span degree 3 curve as the target, but the result is way more complex, and the ends are even heavier and more wobbly.
I would also love to see a demo video. There are a zillion options.
Simon Gatrall | Product Development, Engineering, Design, Onshape | Ex- IDEO, PCH, Unagi, Carbon | LinkedIn
If it's the same magic as the tween surfaces magic, what's happening is the surfaces are being elevated and having knots inserted to match the deformation domains which is a necessary step to guarantee the resulting surfaces respecting locality of the driving geometry.
Also if it's the *exact* same tween surfaces magic, I messed up some of the knot insertion logic and probably the points aren't being perfectly inserted in the intended regions. I can't actually look at the source until next week when I'm back in office after my trip to go play with some marbles.
Derek Van Allen | Engineering Consultant | Meddler