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I'm finding the lathe tool very useful for hard surface modeling. Here are some things I have learned: First tip: Try right-clicking on the points in your curve. It changes the shape of the lines between the curve points. One mode gives you straight lines between points. It is not the default, but it is very useful if you want to make grooves and channels in your object. It is also useful for making chamfers. Here is an object and the lathe curve used to make it. Note, that while creating the curve, you also have the transform tool in the 3D window to modify the shape of the object before you press apply. You can scale it on the X, Y, or Z axis to adjust the shape of your object. If you want to place points in your curve more accurately, make the Tool option windows big. That will make the grid you draw your lathe curve on larger and you will have more room to place points accurately. Here is an example of some simple door hardware made with the lathe tool. One other thing to remember with the lathe feature: You can perform Boolean functions by setting the primative tool option to add, subtract, intersect, etc. One problem I noticed with the lathe tool is every time you move a point on the curve, 3D-Coat recalculates the entire orbject, to show a preview of the shape. This is good for visualization with simple objects, but if the object has several million voxels, moving curve points becomes very laggy and difficult. It would be nice if there was an option to turn off the preview so you could make a complex curve, then turn the display back on to preview the object. Has anyone found the lathe feature useful? Do you have any tips, ideas, or examples?
