Editable Spline

These creation parameters appear in these rollouts for editable splines. For splines to which the Edit Spline modifier has been applied, creation parameters are available by selecting the object type entry (for example, Circle or NGon) at the bottom of the modifier stack.

Controls here let you turn on and off the renderability of the shape, specify its thickness in the rendered scene, and apply mapping coordinates. The spline mesh can be viewed in the viewports. You can animate the render parameters, such as the number of sides. Viewport settings cannot be animated.

You can also convert the displayed mesh into a mesh object by applying an Edit Mesh modifier or converting to an Editable Mesh. The system will use the Viewport settings for this mesh conversion if Use Viewport Settings is checked; otherwise it will use the Renderer settings. This gives maximum flexibility, and will always give the conversion of the mesh displayed in the viewports.

Viewport—Choose to set viewport thickness, sides, and angles. Available only when Display Render Mesh and Use Viewport Settings are on.

Renderer—Turn on and set renderer thickness, sides, and angles.

Thickness—Set this to specify the diameter of the viewport or rendered spline. (Spinner value: float, 0.0 to 1.0E30)

Splines rendered at thickness of 1.0 and 5.0, respectively

Sides—Sets the number of sides for the spline mesh in the viewports or renderer. A value of 4 will give you a square cross section, for example.

Angle—Adjust the rotational position of the cross-section in the viewports or renderer. If you have a square cross section you can use Angle to position a “flat” side down, for example.

Renderable—When on, the shape is rendered using the specified parameters.

Generate Mapping Coords—Turn this on to apply mapping coordinates. The U coordinate wraps once around the thickness of the spline; the V coordinate is mapped once along the length of the spline. Tiling is achieved using the tiling parameters in the material itself.

Display Render Mesh—Displays the mesh generated by the spline in the viewports.

Use Viewport Settings—Displays the mesh generated by the Viewport settings. Available only when Display Render Mesh is on.

The Interpolation controls set how the program generates a spline. All spline curves are divided into small straight lines that approximate the true curve. The number of divisions between each vertex on the spline is called steps. The more steps used, the smoother the curve appears.

Splines used in above lathed objects contained two steps (left) and 20 steps (right)

Steps—Use the Steps field to set the number of divisions, or steps, the program uses between each vertex. Splines with tight curves require many steps to look smooth while gentle curves require fewer steps. Range=0 to 100.

Spline steps can be either adaptive or manually specified. The method used is set by the state of the Adaptive check box. The main use for manual interpolation is to create splines for morphing or other operations where you must have exact control over the number of vertices created.

Optimize—When on, removes unneeded steps from straight segments in the spline. Default=on.

Note: Optimize is not available when Adaptive is on.

Optimize was used to create spline in this lathed object.

Adaptive—When on, automatically sets the number of steps for each spline to produce a smooth curve. Straight segments always receive 0 steps. When off, enables manual interpolation control using Optimize and Steps. Default=off.

Provides controls for turning different sub-object modes on and off, working with named selections and handles, display settings, and information about selected entities.

When you first access the Modify panel with an editable spline selected, you're at the Object level, with access to several functions available as described in Editable Spline (Object). You can toggle the sub-object modes and access relevant functions by clicking sub-object buttons at the top of the Selection rollout.

You can work with parts of shapes and splines using shape sub-object selection of the Editable Spline object. Clicking a button here is the same as selecting a sub-object type in the Modifier List. Click the button again to turn it off and return to object selection level.

Vertices—define points and curve tangents.

Segments—connect vertices.

Splines—are a combination of one or more connected segments.

Copy—Places a named selection into the copy buffer.

Paste—Pastes a named selection from the copy buffer.

Lock Handles—Normally you can transform the tangent handles of only one vertex at a time, even when multiple vertices are selected. Use the Lock Handles controls to transform multiple Bezier and Bezier Corner handles simultaneously.

Alike—As you drag the handle of an incoming vector, all incoming vectors of the selected vertices move simultaneously. Likewise, moving the outgoing tangent handle on one vertex moves the outgoing tangent handle for all selected vertices.

All—Any handle you move affects all handles in the selection, regardless of whether they're broken. This option is also useful when working with a single Bezier Corner vertex when you want to move both handles.

SHIFT+click a handle to "break" the tangent and move each handle independently. The Alike option must be chosen to break the tangent.

Area Selection—Lets you select automatically all vertices within a specific radius of the vertex you click. At the Vertex sub-object level, turn on Area Selection, and then set the radius with the spinner to the right of the Area Selection check box. This is useful when using Surface Tools modeling to create a spline cage.

Segment End—Select a vertex by clicking on a segment. In Vertex sub-object, turn on and select a segment close to the vertex that you want selected. Use this when there are a number of coincident vertices and you want to select a vertex on a specific segment. The cursor changes to a cross when it is over a segment. By holding down the CTRL key you can add to the selection.

Select By—Selects vertices on the selected spline or segment. First select a spline or segment in sub-object spline or segment, then turn on vertex sub-object and click Select By and choose Spline or Segment. All the vertices on the selected spline or segment are selected. You can then edit the vertices.

Show Vertex Numbers—When on, the program displays vertex numbers next to the selected spline's vertices at any sub-object level.

Selected Only—When on, the vertex number or numbers appear only next to selected vertices.

At the bottom of the Selection rollout is a text display giving information about the current selection. If 0 or more than one sub-object is selected, the text gives the number selected.

At the Vertex and Segment sub-object levels, if one sub-object is selected, the text gives the identification numbers of the current spline (with respect to the current object) and of the current selected sub-object. Each spline object contains a spline number 1; if it contains more than one spline, the subsequent splines are numbered consecutively higher.

When a single spline is selected at the Spline sub-object level, the first line displays the identification number of the selected spline and whether it's open or closed, and the second line displays the number of vertices it contains. When more than one spline is selected, the number of splines selected is displayed on the first line, and the total number of vertices they contain is displayed on the second line.

The Geometry rollout provides functions for editing a spline object and sub-objects. The functions available at the spline object level (when no sub-object level is active; see Editable Spline (Object)) are also available at all sub-object levels, and work exactly the same at each level. Other functions are also available, depending on which sub-object level is active. Those that apply to other sub-object levels are grayed out.

For specific information, select any of the links below:

Editable Spline (Object)

Editable Spline (Vertex)

Editable Spline (Segment)

Editable Spline (Spline)