Brian, I did a MOI search for circle packing and hex script without results,
could you please point me to the threads you mentioned ? Thank you !

Hi Tom,

It is morning here. I'll have a look later for some posts on circle pack and hex mesh. The hex mesh was in posts/ nodes of James. Also in conformal map to torus.

-Brian

Do you have the diameter of gems, and model of frog's back?

Tablet has limited web functionality.

Regular MoI array command could array points/circles in hex layout, on a plane.
Unwrap frog back... Discard points outside of flat-back surface. Flow to 3D frog back. Copy gems to points.??????

-Brian

Hi Brian. The Frog is just an example to illustrate what I meant.
Diameter will be around 2 mm upwards.

Unwrapping is one method I thought of. In combination with drawing a hexagonal grid.

Here is a copy of the node program I did in ~2019.
The Macro goes in the nodeeditor macro directory.
The Demo goes in whatever node programs folder that the user wants.

So many old versions and incomplete versions, and a few missing node mods, and hard drive failure, makes it hard to sort out the good nodes.

James' macro was hexTesselation.nod, per memory.

- Brian

The hex centerpoints could be flowed onto the frogback surface.
One gem could then be copied to each new point on the frogback, but the gem would need a normal,
and each mapped point on the frogback would need a surface normal, to sit normal or tangent to the surface.
Also, I do not recall any batch copy of an object to multiple points.
Maybe a script could be written...

Starting to get into Mesh programming, rather than Nurbs.

The Rhino Pave video looks nice. Must have been a very involved programming effort...physics...

As I recall, forum references to circle packing likely not be of much benefit, so no more looking.

Came across a lot of conformal mapping papers, mostly inscrutable, but grist for new scripts...

Hi Tom,

re:
> I not to happy about needing Rhino plus Rhinogold for just one project
> so I am still thinking about a way managing it within MOI.

Probably the MoI method would be to manually place them using Transform > Orient.

- Michael

As noted some months ago:
The Oct.10, 2019 V4Beta Wiki, under resources, shows new scripting properties for Face objects, including face.evaluateNormal( uv ).

Also Jan. 22, 2020 V4Beta Wiki, has scripting properties: face.dropPoint( pt ), brep.dropPoint( pt ), and Updated face.planarFrame().

But at the moment I have too many projects :-)

- Brian

Flow hex center points to frogback.

Process one flowed point.
Face.dropPoint(pt) to get uv.
face.evaluateNormal(uv).
Figure out actual point on the frogback surface, using brep.dropPoint( pt )?
copy gem, using its normal or cplane or something, to align with frogpoint and its normal.
Repeat

The Pave circles (gems) appears to be closely connected to Rhino, Grasshopper, and physics engine Kangaroo2.
Kangaroo2 is written by Daniel Piker, who is responsible for numerous grasshopper circle packings with center repulsive force,
and boundary avoidance... Rhino 7 comes with all three programs. (I have not purchased Rhino.)

- Brian

Hi Michael, I agree, "Orient" will be the main tool when doing it the manually !

Thank you very much Brian.

The Rhino video is nice, I agree - amazing programming work behind the tool.

It is a nice challenge to work out a method without the automated comfort
of a specialized pave tool, will have a look which way works best !

<< ... Kangaroo>>

Being MOI´s greatest fan, I try to avoid to move into Rhino as I
prefer the minimalistic Zenlike aproach of MOI.

If I had dozens of projects in need of an automated pave tool I would
consider Rhino but so far I am confident to find a way within MOIs
capabilty ...

Hi Tom,
not sure if this may help but in Blender there is an addon called Tissue that converts surfaces to hexagon mesh.
I've been using Moi to model and sending them to Blender via BMOI_Connector mentioned on this forum.
Anyway I have tried using an ico sphere created in Blender converting it to hexagon mesh and instance the gem stone onto the faces as shown in the photo.
On the left Sphere without smoothing, right with smoothing.
You can then bring them back into Moi via BMOI_Connector bridge.
Hope this helps.
Barry
Ps:this video may help
https://youtu.be/asBwqJKkFb4

Thank you ! That could be useful. Question is it may be worth the tine to get into Blender
as I never used this software before.

You can't wrap something on any volume/Surface with the Flow function ?

Hi Pilou, Flow distorts the objects to adopt them to the targeted surface or curve,
But diamonds come with standarised sizes / carat and cuts.

So maybe you can try Elephant! ;)

Hi Tom,
Here is a link to Bubble Chart, a dynamic circle technique example:
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/06/us/politics/convention-word-counts.html#Obama

The link is not a political statement, just an example of circle repulsion, like for electrically charged circles. (Underlying Javascript code can be viewed and copied in the brower.

The Bubble Chart link is from here:
https://github.com/d3/d3-force

So if the moveable circles are all the same size, and the boundaries and any internal boundaries are also charged, but non-moveable, the layout would settle down to some sort of hex grid, inside the boundaries.
It would also be nice to be able to add or remove a circle.

Haven't studied the code...

Well, it is 2d planar, not on a 3d surface.

- Brian

Tom,

Here is a test using the Node Editor. The qhull creates the diamond solid object from the outside point configuration of a triangle facet. The diamond is sent to a sphere point array that is orientated from center.

Qhull3d Ref:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=9581.217

Wayne

Vasturiano has at least 2 other related github's, some with 3d features.

- Brian

ps Wayne's node is cool.