Sails

[Christoph Mierowski]

I was really happy to see that somebody (Philo) made Sails. But which sails are that?

The Sails have following part numbers 64991 and 96714. And the diffrent shpae wich are really nice.

But due to bad numbering (the just didn't now the real number of any sails) on bricklink.com and peeron.com you can't find the sails easy. The names are also not that good either.
64991.dat seems to be 'Cloth Sail 17 x 28' (x421)

But what is 96714.dat? I don't know this one. Any visual comparison with the sails listed on bricklink or peeron did not let me find it.
It looks like a smaller version of 64991.dat, but this one was allready the top sail(the bottom is still missing).

Or should it be Cloth Sail Rectangle Small 18 x 12?

and the other one Cloth Sail Rectangle 27 x 17?

Are Cloth Sail Rectangle 27 x 17 and Cloth Sail Top 27 x 17 with Blue Thick Stripes Pattern the same shape?

[Chris Dee]

The headers for 64991.dat and 96714.dat say
0 !KEYWORDS Black Pearl, set 4184

[Philippe Hurbain]

These are indeed Black Pearl sails:
http://brickset.com/parts/4647730
http://brickset.com/parts/4647732
64991 seems to have been used 3 times (2009 and 2011) but I don't know in which set.
It's very difficult to get reliable information on this kind of part...
Reminds me that I still have the triangular sail to do!

[Magnus Forsberg]

I made this, as a visual help, while reviewing these sails.

   

The shaped sails are still unofficial and need more reviews.

[Damien Roux]

Hi there,

I have a question to Philo.

I'm planning to author the x66 sail.
I was wondering how did you create the Black Pearl's ones, and mainly how did you managed to bend them to get the right form.

Thx a lot.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Hi Damien,

Here is the process I used:
- Make a flat sail surface from a scan using LPC.
- Export as STL using LDView.
- import the stl in Meshmixer
- (optional, but very useful!): Export as stl and import in meshmixer the attachment point of the sail, they will serve as reference.
- remesh the flat sail to get "enough" triangles but not too many...
- Position the sail nearby attachment using transform tool
- select some triangles around sail attachment holes, and use soft transform tool to deform sail surface, moving attachment holes on reference points. Some other sculpture tools may be useful to get the right shape...
- If the sail surface remained relatively flat (that was the case for the black pearl sails), export back the single surface as stl (text mode) and convert it to .dat with stl2dat. The sail will be done with two copies of the surface with a slight offset, and the edge generated with ytruder.
- If the cloth is more distorted (minifig cape), in meshmixer, extrude the surface to create thickness, and export the complete cloth as stl, convert as .dat and generate the edges and condlines with Edger2 (stl2dat can do that too, but result is often not as good and is more difficult to control - at least for me - so I use raw mode of stl2dat).

Hope it helps...

[Damien Roux]

Thanks for this answer, that's useful of course.

I've managed to imprt my STL surface into meshmixer. I was also able to remesh it.
This is where it become a bit more complicated.
What do you call "soft transformation tool"?
I don't really understand how I can import attachement points inti meshmixer as I only have a surface made of triangles.
I don't really understand how to move attachments points to deform the mesh.

In my case, as the part is made of plastic and not clothe, the part is quite rigid. So, I would like to bend it as if it was wrapped around a sphere.

[Philippe Hurbain]

What do you call "soft transformation tool"?

After you have selected an area around attachment hole, Deform -> soft transform (shortcut shift+t). You get a handle thingy that you can use to modify the area. Arrows -> move, arcs -> rotate, square -> scale.

I don't really understand how I can import attachement points inti meshmixer as I only have a surface made of triangles.

Sorry, was not clear. I meant import in meshmixer the parts to which the sair is attached - here, the mast. Use "append" instead of "replace" to have two objects (the sail and the mast).

In my case, as the part is made of plastic and not clothe, the part is quite rigid. So, I would like to bend it as if it was wrapped around a sphere.

Soft transform fall-off slider controls the area concerned by transformation so it somehow acts as a stiffness control. You may need to adjust shape, eg. select the center of the sail and use soft transform on it to get the shape right.

[Damien Roux]

OK, thanks, I went a bit further.

But, I cannot find how to rotate it correctly. I'm not able to define the center of rotation I want and can get anything relevant.
Would you mind having a try? (you will need to rename the Sail.txt file into Sail.mix).

[Damien Roux]

In the meantime, I've tried to do it with CATIA, this is what I got so far:



Maybe it will be easier for patterning than with MeshMixer. I don't know yet.

[Philippe Hurbain]

The best tool is the one you know how to use - if Catia works for you it's probably the best solution! Attached what I got using MM...

[Damien Roux]

Great job, but as you might have seen, the distortion on the holes is quite large.

You're right, I think I will stick with CATIA.

I've posted the unformed version here.