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smoother loft?

smoother loft?

smoother loft?

(OP)
Hey,

I've built a loft of an ellipse by making one quarter of it and mirroring twice (photos attached). The loft isn't smooth and continuos, any idea how to make a perfect ellipse? Do I have to add more profiles?

RE: smoother loft?

This could be done more smoothly with a sweep and guide curves.  If you have a curve for the center and guide curves for inside/outside/top/bottom, you can make the ellipse follow the guide curves.  Use pierce constraints in your ellips section sketch to constrain the ellipse to the guide curves as it sweeps.

batHonesty may be the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.bat
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com-SolidWorks API VB programming help

RE: smoother loft?

If you're dead-set on lofts, be sure to have the Start-End Constraint settings set to normal to profile.  That should smooth out the transitions a bit.  However, I think The Tick's advice is the way to go.

Dan

www.eltronresearch.com

RE: smoother loft?

Your ellipse centers are off-center--meaning you cannot have tangency between surfaces doing it this way.  Make sure your centers are centered on your geometry.

Judging by the shaded model, it also looks as if your guide curves are not tangent to vertical or horizontal--so when you mirror your geometry you get unmatched surfaces as well.  Draw construction lines on the ends of your guide curves, set them to be tangent to the guide curves, then assign them to be either vertical or horizontal (whichever makes sense).

There are other tips to use for more complex stuff, but this should straighten out these forms just fine.  (Instead of making construction lines to establish proper tangency you can create surfaces for tangency and even continuity--but I don't think you need that quite yet.)

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reason trumps all.  And awe transcends reason.

RE: smoother loft?

(OP)
Thanks guys, I'll try your advices.

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