I’m digitizing my fish template and was able to get the outline traced based of the photo of the template. I want to deepen the swallow-tail a bit but I can’t move that control point. I’ve tried moving it with the mouse and editing it using the Control Point Info box in the lower right. I’ve also made sure the X asix wasn’t locked by right clicking on the point. But it won’t budge.
During my first attempt to trace the background photo a few weeks ago I wasn’t even able to create a swallow tail because the point wouldn’t move in the first place. Couple weeks later, new file, was able to move it. Now that point will no longer move. I have no idea what governs it.
I’ve also noticed that the handle for that point no longer moves freely.
MarkW, I think a swallow-tailed fish is a shape not really condusive in BoardCAD, or by using basic functions in any shaping software. as the tail endpoint of the board is ‘gone’ so to speak, in the negative space of where the swallowtail is.
BoardCAD version 3 does have some functions in tthe 3D Model tab that allow for a swallow tail and advanced editing but I do not know how to get a clean result from these, mostly ends up looking ‘smeared’ in the renders.
I am not sure where to go for help with BoardCAD anymore either other than leafing through the old version 2 BoardCAD Book.
If any of the development team is tuned in, it would be great to hear suggestions.
I loaded up a fish design from the Shape3D Warehouse into Shape3D and the ‘crack’ was being made by an additional 3D layer, the board itself was a square tail.
jrandy… by negative space do you mean out of the area that isn’t recognized by a printer/shaper? e.g.The board is 6’ long and the centerline tail control point is at 0" with the swallow extending into negative space, like -5"… meaning the board is 6’5" long.
The first model I tried to do that way but the tail didn’t print. The second model I was able to make a swallow tail within the positive space. Meaning the two ends of the tail were at 0" and the centerline was at around 4.5". If I knew it was a bit of a mystery I would have paid exact attention how I did it.
And all I really use it for is to print template outlines on paper. So any other anomoly doesn’t really affect me.
Modified brd file (blue) moves ‘crack’ 5.2cm (2.047 in) towards midpoint by changing 10.8xx to 16.00 and then I messed with the vector values from 3.xx to 2.54 even (you may not want to do that, I could so I did…)
I know it’s been almost a years since this post but your comment saved me a lot of time. I’m a fan of hacking things so getting into the markup for the files is pretty fun.
