Can't select path for sweep tool

[Tom]

Hi everyone... longtime owner of Universe 5 (actually owned Electric Image way before that). Longtime owner, but first time user. Yes, that's right. It took me all this time. Fear of the unknown, as well as being technologically cursed (every electronic, including my macs, seem to give me problems upon problems), has kept me from ever rolling up my sleeves to learn EI, which is a shame, because graphics and animation is my dream job.

Now that I've been unemployed for almost two years now, I've finally gotten around to pulling my head out of the sand and into Universe.

I'm going through one of the tutorials that came with the software. For some reason, I can't get the sweep tool to work. I have a circle and I have a circle for the sweep path. I can select the circle (planar cross section) without any problem... but I can't seem to select the other circle that is to be my sweep path. I don't know why. I've tried everything... holding the shift key while selecting the sweep path, moving the circle sweep path closer to the cross section... I've even rotated my view and tried to select the path from different angles. Nothing seems to work.

By the way, I was able to take the same cross section and sweep it on a curved path. I just can't do it to the circle.

Any ideas what I am doing wrong? I'd really appreciate the help. I'm so excited... I'm actually making progress and this isn't as scary as I had thought! If only I had done this years ago. :(

[Aziz]

Hi,

I guess you're referring to EI Modeler.

I'm no expert but when I have trouble with the sweep tool, I double click the sweep icon and a dialog box with options appears. I change settings in the dialog box until my sweep works.

Not very precise, but it works for me :)

[Tom]

Thanks Aziz. But unfortunately that didn't help.

(Yes, I'm referring to EIS Modeler. Sorry.)

Nothing that I do evokes any sort of response whatsoever when I click on the circle that is to be the sweep path. This is very frustrating. It's literally as if the software is broken just on this one thing. Everything else seems to be fine so far. As I said, I can even get the sweep to work on a curved path... but not on this circle. When I click on my planar cross section, it highlights red as it should to show that it is selected. However, when I click on my sweep path (made from Curve Primitives -> Circle), nothing happens. It doesn't get highlighted... nothing... as if the circle is not there at all.

Any other ideas anyone? Thanks Aziz again for trying to help.

[Tomas Egger]

Ola Tom,

please, Upload a simple EIM project file Zipped.

Tom, only a detail, EI Modeler still EITG company property, its not our and it was discontinued, but I would like to help you. :)

Thanks

Tom

[Tom]

I've attached it here. Thanks.

tutorial 1 - robot.zip

[fantomaz]

Hi Tom,

your circles are faces, if you uncover them it works.

(the 'uncover tool' in the tab: face editing).

Alex

[Tom]

Ahhhhhh! Thank you very much! That worked!

Why did I have to do that? (The tutorial made no mention of it, by the way.) Also, I've noticed that the ring is there now... but the original circle cross section is still there, independent of the ring. Why is it still there? Should I/Can I delete it? Or should I leave it?

Thanks again!

[fantomaz]

Hi Tom

Modeler dont delete these items, they are still there (in case you need them

for other actions), you can delete it, but you dont have to.

When you created the circle for your sweep, make sure its only made of

wires. In case you checked the little boxes: 'make surfaces 2 sided' and/or

'fill primitives' (in the dialogbox for 'Circles and Ellipse') you dont get a wire...

Alex

[Tom]

Thank you guys!

[rtrowbridge]

When I'm using Modeler, I like to give my wires a name that helps me remember what I created it for. I then create a new layer in the Layer view and move my wire to it once I'm done using it. That way, the organization of my objects is cleaner. Plus, I can hide or unhide my wires all at once.