Hi! I’m the guy who has been working on the NURBS project. Good news: I am a few weeks into the semester and it is looking like I will have time to continue doing meaningful work on this, just not as quickly as in the last few months (from your perspective, things might even seem to happen quicker, since I am transitioning from behind-the-scenes work to easily visible work).
I wanted to make a new thread where I could post updates and reach everyone who was interested at once rather than one-at-a-time through email. I just got merge-ready builds working on {mac,windows,linux} using {cmake,scons}, so I have actual binaries for you. Temper your expectations – there are still enough bugs and missing features that I doubt these will actually be useful, not yet. However, for some workflows the NURBS enhancements are getting close to useful and for this reason perhaps some of you might want to play with the preliminary builds
------ Warning for Artists -----
You should probably be using subdivision surfaces instead, especially in light of the OpenSubdiv support Sergey is working on, which will be feature-complete in Blender long before NURBS. NURBS surfaces are primarily useful for designers, engineers, and people who have to have to work with CAD/CAE programs (they are more mathematically friendly, which can be important for simulations & such). Invest your time and effort wisely.
------ Latest Build -----
Features as of 9/13/2014:
- What you see here
- Analytic Normals
- N-Gon Tessellation in convert-to-mesh operator
- Trim support (1 major bugfix until “1.0” – triangle artifacts in some trim curves)
- UV Trim Editor
- Rhino Import (1 minor feature, rotation surfaces, needed before “1.0”)
Downloads:
Git: testbuild branch, commit 48eac582c846bd75f6083740509ed75cfa8a3f19
Linux 32-bit: https://mega.co.nz/#!dpszDZxa!3y27friF8oh0hMjkQX8-o3Z6ZQ-pC59wEVdhLWi6HPE
Linux 64-bit: https://mega.co.nz/#!Y59CTLSD!EcG-AyNgyvLGgQx1bvGnLSSfYtj9WjHyFb_x2Mp99BI
Mac 64-bit: https://mega.co.nz/#!dpszDZxa!3y27friF8oh0hMjkQX8-o3Z6ZQ-pC59wEVdhLWi6HPE
Windows 64-bit: https://mega.co.nz/#!IglinAjC!HBtXQwPDvp-qOk0iJ6MyHWKrr4GkPAfzvblO2hafF1g
------ Short-term Todo List (hopefully ~1wk each) -----
- Merge the stable work
- Rotation Surfaces (the little task that keeps getting kicked down the road due to big tasks)
- Fix the tessellation bug (I’ve figured out what to do, “just” have to code it)
- .3dm export (especially for meshes)
------ Long-Term Plans -----
- STEP support
- Curve->NURBS construction (modifier stack, perhaps?)
- Coving Support (ability to stitch edges together)
- Bevel+Chamfer
- Bezier Quilt support (edit with points ON surface, not points above surface)
- Native ray-traced NURBS support in Cycles
- Geometry Shader tessellation for NURBS surfaces in editor
Let me know what you think of these priorities, particularly if you might like things switched up. I can’t promise anything, but the order isn’t super important to me, so it’s worth asking.
Cheers,
Jon