Problems with lofting

Hello,

I'm attaching a design I'm working on (it's a hull of a sailboat). I'm making that shape through use of meshes (since AutoCAD offers no better option).

However, from time to time, I need to check the volume of that hull, and here AutoCAD again has no option for it. It can only tell volume of 3d Solid. And I can't convert mesh to solid.

So here's what I do: I take that hull, draw 3d Polylines on top of cross-sections, and then loft them. It should produce 3d Solid (it worked before), and I can check it's volume with MassProp.

However, now Loft produces Surface instead of Solid, although Loft option Mode is set to Solid. And I can't convert that surface to 3d solid.

What is wrong here? Autocad is 2013 with Service Pack 1.

How do I loft these cross-sections to produce 3d Solid?

I would appreciate if anyone could help as soon as possible, I'm in a bit of hurry. Thanks in advance!

010.dwg

What command did you use? Did you try SURFSCULPT?

Loft command. It produces Surface. Tried using SurfSculpt - doesn't convert to Surface.

SurfSculpt will create a solid.

As I said, it doesn't. It says:

"Modeling Operation Error:

Operation did not add or remove material.

Solid creation failed, no watertight volume detected."

Try it.

Unfortunately I am not at my CAD computer at the moment and won't be for some time therefore I am unable to try it.

My last response was my way of correcting what I thought was a mis-understanding on your part (i.e. - you expected SurfSculpt to create a surface). I do not doubt that what you tried failed to produce the desired results. Perhaps someone else can assist you until such time as I have access to my CAD computer.

Some of the cross sections are non-planar. See if this works any better.

010_FlattenedProfiles.dwg

Yes, it solved the problem - but what did you mean by non-planar?

There was a good video showing the making of a boat with AutoCAD. It was one of the promo videos by AutoDesk showing AutoCAD's new 3D tools.

Non-planar means objects do not lie in one plane.

Well, I understand, but in which plane? And how did you fix this?

And for the future, what if I want to loft 3d polylines which are not in one plane, and still get 3d Solid, not Surface?

You can use the following objects and subobjects with LOFT:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]38629[/ATTACH]