Loft

Create a smooth surface by connecting two curves, two surfaces or an edge and a surface; or connect two surfaces to create a solid shape.

Loft any geometry parts that contain edges / faces. Solid or closed regions cannot be lofted.

Figure 1. The lofting of edges within parts.

For surface bodies, the body must have a single boundary which does not close on itself and no edge may be attached to more than two faces.

Figure 2. The loft of two ellipses to create a solid (on the left) and the loft of two elliptic arcs to create a cylindrical surface (on the right).

For curved bodies (bodies without faces), the body must be continuous. Open profiles (arcs) and closed profiles (circles) may be lofted, but cannot be used together in a single loft. A valid surface loft can be created, for example, between two lines, between two circles (closed elliptical arcs), between a line and an open polyline, or between a circle and a closed polyline, but a line cannot be lofted to a circle or to a closed polyline.

Different surface primitives, such as ellipses and rectangles, can be specified as the loft cross-section profiles to create a solid body.

If the two loft profiles have an equal number of edges or vertices, the loft operation connects each pair of edges. For an unequal number of wires / edges, some vertices on one profile are matched to a single vertex on the other profile. Points can be imprinted on one or both of the profiles to improve matching, or to influence the shape of the loft.

Figure 3. The loft of a line and polyline (on the left) and the preview of the loft (on the right).

When lofting closed edges or faces, use the Alignment index to change the relative alignment of the two profiles in the loft, thereby introducing or removing twists.