Surprisingly, the JMLC articles are constantly among the most read here. My corresponding JMLC worksheets can already be found in the Download section of my webpage since some time. Recently, I got the request that in addition to the existing point cloud export it should also be possible to export splines for each step along the horn axis as many CAD programs can import and loft such splines much more elegant than to mesh a point cloud. Fortunately, I implemented the splines feature already for my William Neile worksheets so it was no big thing to migrate the feature also for the JMLC HVDdiff worksheet.
Some months ago there was still another request to work with Fusion 360 (Autodesk, www.autodesk.com) using splines. After some research I decided to try out the non-commercial Fusion 360 version and at the same time take the chance to improve my Python skills. For the import of splines I got a Python example scripts which used the Fusion 360 API from the user who requested the feature. In my opinion the API is vey well documented while for most of the features example scripts are provided. The corresponding Fusion support forum is also a big source of inspiration to write some ones own Python script.
Once I got the import of splines working properly I programmed a second scripts which automatically lofts the splines. The only final step is to export a step file.
I will place the new worksheet in the Download section together with example splines for a non optimized horn just by setting some arbitrary parameters.
When you use Fusion 360 the following two steps are required by running thes provided scripts:
- Import_DrBA_Splines
- Loft_DrBA_Splines
It would be nice to receive some feedback if the algorithm is working for someone out there. The source code of the Python scripts is open source and can also be used for different purposes.
Have fun!