Posted by John DeFazio on March 01, 2000 at 17:43:34:In Reply to: French Curve Tool posted by Alfred Scott on February 29, 2000 at 15:01:28:
Alfred gave me a call today and to tell me of this discussion and asked me to join into the fray.
Here's my case for french curves---
Spine Tool and Beziers are excellent tools... however they are a different animal from a good set ship, railroad/highway and french curves. French and the other above mentioned templates were developed in the 18th through the early 20th Centuries delineate naval architecture, Neo-Classical architecture, and the then emerging industrial design. They allowed designers, engineers and draftsmen to do pretty much what we do with Beziers, Splines et al. Over time they evolved and became some what standardized, although there is still a great range of shapes (The Charrette Catalogue has 13 French curves, a set of 56 Copenhagen ships curves, and a set of 55 Railroad curves alone). Their shapes are of complex and compound curves-- ranging from whiplash lines of the Art Nouveau, to the soft open sweep of a New Jersey Turnpike acceleration lane... and most of all they aesthetic --- reflecting shapes found In Classicism and the natural world. The virtue of these templates is their "set" nature. They are repeatable (without copy paste method described in Matt Arnold's post). They allowed you to “see” the line before it is made,to test it against other similar yet different curves and extend along the same complex curvature if need be.
Greg La Vardera gets it right on the interface I’m hoping for, as does, J Richardson with the need for ability to start tangently to existing end points, and Michael Spencer’s understanding for the need for ghosting (these are people who know what delineation is!). 15 years ago, "in the last days of hand drafting", when I working with Venturi, Scott Brown Associates, we would utilized these templates not just for site planning, but architecture, furniture and product design. To recall the line we would leave a very light outline of the entire “ghost"curve to reference for future editing not just for a ourselves but so others could pick where we left off.
Other uses for such FrenchCurve WildTool would range from landscape architecture, exhibit design, civil engineering, of course naval architecture, and even aircraft design (if someone had a mind to, Fred). Fine artist like Frank Stella and Jim Nutt use them in their abstract and figurative paintings and drawings...
I realize that this may be all a bit anachronistic-----a hold over from the late 19C Beaux 'Art ---heck it was an anachronism when we were using it 15 years ago. However, in my own practice today often I find myself trying to recreate those graceful complex curves... and after all isn’t the PowerCadd/WildTools platform supposed to be as intuitive and refined as hand drawing... Besides it would be neat!
More comments please.
John DeFazio AIA
jdef@home.com
(yes Greg the same one)