What is WellingLures

WellingLures Oy Ltd is a company delivering  lurebuilding supplies for private individuals and lure manufacturers. WellingLures website is source for lurebuilding components, tools and services. Key function in website is “Lurebuilder” application. It is a web based tool which allows you to design your lure geometry and save it in to a webserver. Based on digital information it is possible to create all kinds of tailored components and tools easier than for handmade sketches. Let’s for example say that you have done a lure of some length and you would like to make another version, just scale it up retaining the same body proportions. In Lurebuilder it is easy, just give the new version length, save the new geometry and order the body components from webshop.  Or, if you would like to make a dozen slightly different test versions which would have one millimeter difference in height or body curvature – easy as click of a mouse in Lurebuilder. Digital saving format allows you also to get best out of future development. Our R&D is working constantly to create new offering which in most of the cases can be implemented to existing lure models – as long as we have a digital model of them.

Preconditions

You need to have:

-          PC or laptop (tablets, mobile devices or any other touchscreen devices are not supported yet)

-          Working internet connection

-          Internet browser (Google Chrome is preferred)

-          Javascript enabled in your browser

-          Modern graphics card

-          Mouse (one with scroll button is preferred)

Supported browsers

Functions and graphical layout are optimized for Google Chrome browser

Note for Internet Explorer users: We can not guarantee Lurebuilder or any other component working in IE. If you face some unexpected problems with IE when using the site, please consider first changing to another browser.

Signing Up

1. Go to website http://www.wellinglures.com
    
2. Click Sign Up (1^st time users) or Log In (already registered users).

Note, that unregistered users can not save their designs, buy products from our webshop, comment in to blog posts etc.

1. Read carefully Terms and Conditions which are linked in to registration form. They are also available in "Support" menu

Terms & Conditions of Use

Latest revision of Terms & Conditions of Use can be found from our website: http://www.wellinglures.com/Terms and Conditions of Use

Terms & Conditions of Sale

Latest revision of Terms of Sale can be found from our website: http://www.wellinglures.com/Terms and Conditions of Sale

Delivery Terms

Latest revision of Delivery Terms can be found from our website: http://www.wellinglures.com/Delivery terms

1. Create a user account by giving your information
    
2. When you are done, click “Sign Up”. You will receive a confirmation email in to mail address you gave.

Using Lurebuilder

See LureBuilder instructions in YouTube (link is for playlist - general description and instrctions): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA2CqTBrMS8&list=PLFiJ6isTkHWxOIZbWNZUr0F7HY6hBKqXd

Principles

Lurebuilder uses your computer’s calculation power and your commands to create digital presentation of your lure design. End results are saved in to a webserver database in a format which can be in post processed in WellingLures and fabricated in to physical products, such as lure bodies, painting stencils, casting moulds etc. We update available fabrication materials in to webshop as we get them tested. You will get the advantage of e.g. 3D printing materials development without need to change you design. if there is some material you are interested of and we do not have it yet available, please contact our support. We'll check if we can make custom delivery for you.

User Inteface

Main components in Lurebuilder are:

1. Command panel
2. Side view
3. Top view
4. Cross section view
5. 3D view
6. Tabs
7. Lure name field

Working with views

Zoom in / Zoom out

If you use a mouse with scroll button, you can zoom by placing the mouse pointer in to any view and scrolling

Pan

You can pan view by clicking your scroll button down and moving your mouse

Graphical symbols

Geometry & profile line

 

Geometry is shown with two dimensional black profile line (1) in top and side views. 3D view window shows full 3D view of geometry. Geometry can also be inspected in any angle in 3D view. Rotate the viewing angle by keeping left mouse button pressed in render view while moving the mouse. Green and blue axis help in determing how the lure is aligned in the view (green positive Y axis points "as the back fin" from the lures back and blue negative Z axis points from the left side of the lure)

Control points

Rectangular and round control points define geometry boundaries. They can be selected by left-clicking them. Selected control point is highlighted. Control points can be moved by selecting them, keeping the left mouse button down and dragging the point in to a desired location. You can also type in the desired new coordinate in “Selected point – X and Y fields and pressing “enter” from your keyboard.

Note that changing “cross section” proportions override control points in side and top views resulting to a non-uniform scale. If you want to keep side and top views exact, do not change control point positions in cross section or do not drag cross section handles so that section goes over original 1:1 bounding box.

Node

Rectangular "nodes" are points through which geometry lines go. They can be in start and end point of geometry lines or somewhere between. You need at least two nodes to create curved lines. 

Tangent & Tangent handle

 

Tangents are shown for each control point as red line. In both ends of tangent there are round symbols. They can be selected by left-clicking them. Selected tangent handle is highlighted. Handles can be moved by selecting them, keeping the left mouse button down and dragging the handle in to a desired location. You can also type in the desired new coordinate in “Selected point – X and Y fields and pressing “enter” from your keyboard.

 

Distance of tangent handle from a related control point determines how forceful tangent angle affects to the geometry.  If tangent handle is dragged far away from a certain control point, there is more “wave” in the surface on that point. You could also say that the control point has then more effect to the geometry than those with shorter tangents.

Tangent does not need to be same length in both sides of a control point, they can be moved independently.

To affect, how smooth or corned geometry is near the control point, see Settings – Tangent mode

Coordinate axles

In render view there are red, blue and green lines which show direction of coordinate system’s X- Y- and Z-axis. These can be handy to observe if you do not always see from the view which side of the lure you are looking to.

Settings

Tangent mode

  

As default tangents are “Smooth” i.e. they form a straight line through handles and control point which most of the time results to a smooth 3D surface. You can change the tangent mode to “Corner” from command panel. It is then possible to make corned tangents and surfaces. Note, that this type of surfaces cause challenges in many applications and postprocessing.

Lure length

You can change the lure length with this form. Length is millimeters and is applied to the whole geometry when you press “Apply length”. You can change the length at any time.

Thickness

If you want to make your lure body hollow, you can set the desired wall thickness here. If value is bigger than lures narrowest point, lure will be solid. You can see the effect of wall as thin offset line in lure profiles. If there is no such offset line visible, your lure is solid.

Symmetric

This setting determines if both sides of profile line are mirrored relative to center line of the lure or not. Setting can be different for different views. You can check the current setting by placing your pointer to some view (checkbox shows the setting value). As default, top view and cross section use symmetricality as it gives you best basis for straight running lure. Changing setting from non-symmetric to symmetric keeps the last changed profile and overrides the other side of the lure with mirrored version.

Coordinates

Coordinates of selected point are shown in the user interface. You can also draw precisely by selecting some control point or tangent handle and giving the new coordinate value from keyboard. New coordinate is then applied by pressing “Enter”.

How to Use

1. A) Start new project by clicking “New Lure”
   or
   B) Go to "Library" and select template that fits best for your target
   Note there is no "undo" command, so practise saving frequently. Use "save as copy" to make new baseline where you can return when needed. Asterisk in "save" button is shown when lure has unsaved changes.
2. In "Profile" tab, type in length in “Lure Length”
3. You have a base design shown in views. Go in to any view and drag control points as well as tangent handles to desired locations to form your lure
4. In "Bend" tab you can bend the design. This tab is there to allow curvy shapes which would have even two cross sections in some point. Note this tab should be used with caution and is recommended only for subtle changes or grub like softbait tails. Changes done in bend tab can only be seen in 3D view, in profile view you can still work with the original design. "Reset Curve" button removes all bend commands and you get back the straight design, if needed
5. In "Components" tab you can add components like diving lips, figure 8 forms, weights etc. to your design. Use by clicking "Add component" and select desired component from library. Components are first added in to origo and can be selected from their center node. Selected component name is shown in tools panel. You can move selected component by dragging it with mouse. There is also rotation circle around every center point. You can rotate component by clicking anywhere in rotation circle edge and dragging by mouse. Moving and rotating can also be done from tools panel.
   If you want to remove a component, select it and click "remove component". Note, that components do not scale with the lure. if you change the lure length, you need to reposition components and consider changing them to smaller or bigger versions as well.
   Components you want to locate in to both sides of the lure symmetrically can be mirrored. Position one component first, keep it selected and press "Mirror component". Command creates another independent copy of the component (If you reposition either one, other does NOT follow - keep this in mind when finetuning the component locations)
6. When you are satisfied with the geometry, save it to webserver with a name you can recognize. Name of the lure is typed in to name field and accepted with enter from keyboard. 
7. "Share lure" button gives you possibility to share the image of your lure and 3D view access in socila media channels like facebook, Google+ etc. Note, that sharing does NOT give anybody else possibility to modify the lure.
8. Go to the “Webshop – Your own design” and order products based on geometry you saved. You can also use "Order lure" button in Lurebuilder left bottom corner, it takes you to webshop and directly to the lure you have in Lurebuilder view.

Working with cross section

Cross section is applied to the whole lure length by stretching or scaling it between top and side profile. Cross section is therefore not exact and exists as it is drawn only in such points where both side profile and top profile are as wide. If you want to get for example narrower belly than back of the lure, you can adjust the profile accordingly by changing the profile line side tangents.

Note, that cross section is limited by top and side profiles only if cross section sides are in original 1:1 ratio. That means, if you change location of any control point in cross section profile your side and top profiles are not any more exact borders of the lure. If you want do design for example lures of some preferred width or height we recommend you observe first how cross section changes affect to some test design.

Add cross section

As default lure uses only one cross section through whole lure length. If you wish to have more variation in the lure body, you can use "Add cross section" button. It adds also yellow triangles and precision insert lines to side profile view. You can then drag the triangle sideways to the point where you want to have different cross section. When you have clicked one triangle, you can change cross section of it and rest will be left as they are.

Remove cross section

If you have added unneccessary cross section, select it by clicking it's yellow control triangle in side profile view and click "Remove cross section".  

Adding symmetrical components (eye cavities, side fins...)

When adding components or cavities, which need to be symmetrical on both sides of the lure, use "Mirror component" command. As example, add eye cavities / insets like this:

In Components tab, select "Add Component", go to component library category "Cavities & Fill blocks", select e.g. "Eye cavity scalable"
- as default, this cavity component is added only to other side of the lure to the origo:

Change eye cavity size to desired values. Note that given dimension is for the whole cavity component. As it has draft angle, the bottom of the cavity is smaller than given width and height. If you have factory made tape eye or 3d eye, you need to give here bit bigger dimensions for the cavity to fit eye in. Here in example cavity is set to 7,3mm to use 7mm flexible 3d eye with a tight fit. You might need more tolerance if you add several base coat layer before adding eyes, more tolerance for bigger eyes etc.

Move the eye cavity in to desired position by dragging it from square control node and rotating it with round gizmo. You will need to work typically in all four views to get the cavity in to place. Tip: rotate 3D view with right mouse button so you can see the desired eye location, center view to eye with left mouse button. Zoom in with scroll button to see how deep cavity goes into lure. Pay attention to opposite sides of the cavity, typically they look best if they are in symmetrical depth. It often takes several tries until you get the cavity in to correct position and rotation in all three projection views.

When satisfied, keep cavity component selected and click "Mirror component". You should see now second cavity in other side of the lure in exactly same position (mirrored).

Carving

Carving tab gives you possibility to effect to lure surface. You have a library of different grayscale patterns in use. Each pattern point which is black reduces (or "carves") the surface by predifined depth. 50% gray areas leave the surface as it is and white areas raise the surface by predifined height. Grey and white tones have retrospective effect, so you can create smoothly changing carved areas to the lure. Some patterns are automatically tiled (like typical scale patterns) and one "tile" is repeated /tiled multiple times in lure automatically. Some patterns like gills and heads are added as one limited area. You can add multiple patterns to the same lure and mix them together. You can also create masks to limit are where pattern is added.

To use carving, add first pattern by clicking blue plus sign in "Selected texture" view. "Add Texture" pop up window appears.

Browse through categories in texture library. Select texture to be used and click "Add texture" button.

Library dissapears and you can see default placement of texture in 3D view. This is just a preview and pattern depth can be slightly different in final surface.

In profile view you can see violet dummy to show default pattern position and rotation. You can move, rotate and scale this dummy same way as you would work with a component. Easiest way to manage your changes is to follow 3D view.

Masks

For most patterns it is needed to limit the pattern effect to only some portion of the lure surface. You can do it by using different mask areas. There are fill masks and hole masks. For example, if you want to limit the scale pattern so that scales are not covering the lure head, back and belly, do as follows:
- select the pattern you want to limit with masks, it needs to be your active pattern
- click "add fill mask"
- start to add mask border points with your 1st mouse button. After adding few points you notice software automatically closes the mask area.
- add needed amount of border points. Notice you do not need to set tehm precisely in the beginning, you can adjust the position later on. Again, use 3d view window to see the effect as preview.
- Sometimes if you want to leave a spot in middle of the pattern area untouched, you can use also "add hole mask" command

Tips and recommendations

Reservation for coating

Note that in Lurebuilder 1.0 version (check release notes as this might change in the future) you design lure body as an unfinished component and you need to consider manufacturing requirements, too. For example, if you design lure to have 5mm thick rear, you most probably get much thicker end product as you need to apply paint and coating. On the other hand, very thin forms would not be possible to manufacture as components in all materials.

Our R&D is working to get visualization of coating effect in to next releases of the Lurebuilder.

Minimum rear thickness

These are minimum dimensions for our manufacturing technology – they do not represent what would be the minimum need in real application. If you are designing lure for deep sea predators, you might want to make much more sturdier shapes.

• Wooden bodies – 2mm
• Plastic bodies – 0,5mm

Less control points is often better than more

Title says it all. Typically new users create lots of control points and then try to do small changes to them to get smooth surfaces and turns to the geometry. This often results to stacking change need and end result still has some “corners”. Most of the times the same goal would be reached by with fewer control points and fine-tuning their tangent handles. In early test phase we were able to make best traditional shapes with only one control point between start and end of the profile line – as long as the tangent mode was selected to be “Smooth”.

Work with 3D view

Making geometry with the Lurebuilder is easy and you can see the changes immediately in 3D view. However, sometimes screen can be hard to interpret how the physical end product would be like. If you have a certain curvature of surface in your mind, we recommend you would turn the design in 3D view in to any possible angle before continuing to saving and ordering it. It’s good especially to look long objects both from front and rear close angles to see how lure’s back and belly curves look like.

Do not make crossing surfaces or profile lines

This is actually a must for us to be able to make your components – all design must be consistent. If your profile lines cross, it means that in the crossing point geometry would actually be splitted to two pieces. Even if this kind of situation could look doable in two separate pieces, calculation method in backline of the Lurebuilder can not recognize what it should do with such a geometry. At least in the Lurebulilder version 1.0 we do not have a checker function to warn about such cases. They are noticed in production phase and resolving the case takes unnecessarily time from your process.

Good to remember in dimensioning

Measurements you will give are for 2D / 3D computer model. When manufactured in real life your model will face manufacturing tolerances, coating, shrinking etc. depending on processes you will use to finalize your lure. Keep on mind at least following phenomena:

• When you coat your lure, thickness and length of the lure increase. When placing your components, leave some space for coating, otherwise you end up having e.g. useless line attachment loops as they are filled up with coating.
• If you order 3D printed parts from your design, 3D printers tend to close small grooves and cavities more than little big bigger cavities. Also surrounding geometry affects, what kind of end tolerance cavity will have. We have done our best to add just perfect reservation for each component dimensions, but sometimes component cavities might get too tight or loose depending how much material there is in your design surrounding the component. Unfortunately there is no way to make custom tolerances for each component in each use case so some postprocessing might be needed for your 3D prints. 
• We have added typically 0,2-0,5mm in to each component size in order to compensate cavity shrinkage in 3D prints and to reserve some space for glue in final product. If you print out your design in to paper, drawings include this tolerance. Just as you are aware of this. E.g. 10mm ball weight 3D model in LureBuilder component library has actual 10,4mm diameter.
• If you use your model as master object for making casting molds, there will be shrinkage in final product. Amount of shrinkage depends on casting method, your mold design and casting material. Due to this you can not always use exactly the same 3D model in different applications. if you have created for example 3D painting stencil for lathed lure, same stencil does not typically fit for resin casted version from that same 3D model, you need to adjust the dimensions. 
• Lurebuilder adds automatically left and right side supports for components you add to hollow models (there can also be special components without supports in the library. They are meant for solid lures, indicated in component naming). These supports have also automatically draft angle in one direction, it helps making casting molds. Unfortunately, we have not yet found proper mechanism to add draft in to hollow lure body itself (situation at least with LureBuilder 1.0). If you plan to cast your design in non-shrinking casting method and use metal materials, please consider adding the draft to cross section profile yourself. Also, draft is hardcoded to the component itself, not to the geometry where component is placed. It means you will loose the advantage of draft if you rotate the components much. For example if you insert 3D eye components and want to have small cavity for them. You can take 3D eyes from library, but when you position them to very curvy part of the lure head (e.g. very front in thick lure head), they point more onwards than to side. This causes  draft angle is not aligned any more to the sides. This should not be a big problem if you make molds from soft materials, but for making a CNC routed mold from metal it is a negative phenomena.

Non symmetric lure bodies (advanced users only)

As a rule of the thumb all lures should have symmetric sides to get them running straight. However, for lightweight lures targeted for just a certain speedzone – casting or more usually trolling, sometimes non symmetric shapes can bring unexpected movement. Sometimes unexpected is a good thing, but prepare yourself to get also non working geometries if you go this way. Non symmetrical shapes are used especially with saddle shape diving lips and lure bodies made of balsa. Difference of sides  needs to be minimal. Some pros tune the lures first to carve to another side from lure body or even by turning belly and rear hook attachment loops. Then they correct the movement to run straight from line attachment loop. Result can sometimes be a lure which can not take much of speed, but starts to “scatter” deadly in a limited speed zone before swim motion fails. Lure can even seem to go straight and make irrational shakes every now and then in this speed zone – sometimes very catching movement.