Skin Envelopes
A skin envelope is a fast way to generate a smooth envelope from interval data.
It is mainly used for:
- quick preliminary modeling
- fast visual testing before creating a more detailed envelope
Compared with other envelope workflows, skin envelopes are intentionally simple and focused on speed.
Start the command
From interval selection, use:
- Generate Skin Envelope… - creates iterative skin envelope candidates from the selected interval set
Skin envelope iteration dialog
When the command starts, a dialog opens with these fields:
- min - lower bound of the tested bubble/shrink range
- max - upper bound of the tested bubble/shrink range
- step - number of generated intermediate envelope candidates
In most workflows, step is the main control you adjust. A higher step count gives more candidate envelopes to choose from, but generation may take longer.
Interactive selection mode
After generation, the software enters skin envelope selection mode.
Navigate candidates
- Ctrl + mouse wheel or Shift + mouse wheel - move through generated envelope candidates
Inspect and lock interval influence
- Hover an interval to preview its influence in yellow
- Click an interval to lock/exclude it from the current skin computation (displayed in blue)
- Click again to remove that lock
Refine and finalize
- Double-click to refine around the current candidate and continue toward a final shape
- After refinement, double-click again to finish and keep the selected skin envelope
- Escape cancels and exits without keeping the result
After validation, the created skin envelope is added and opened in the envelope dialog.
Practical guidance
- Start with default min and max unless you need a specific bubble range.
- Increase step when you want finer control during wheel navigation.
- Use interval locking only when specific intervals are causing undesired local shape effects.
If generation fails
If no envelope is created and an error indicates missing external components, verify that required external packages are installed correctly.