Also it seems as though all the curves are slightly rotated about the Z axis. It makes many things difficult. I wonder if a cplane could work for this?

Hi Pilou, thank you for all the strugle.

I attached some photos from old pieces only to show how I've been working with "slices".

This skull from 1996 was made with iron wire glued over glass slices, the MOI piece will be constructed also with wire but with 160 planes and not 11 as this one. If I use glass planes as support the transparency disappears, 160 slices would be a green opaque block of glass. So... I think of "sew" the wires trough plexiglass planes, these planes will be drilled on a router with the drawing that I'm trying to produce with the help of MOI. (this was the worst English phrase of the day!)
Another piece uses glass panels with salt stain (actually crystalized salted water).
And there is a self-portrait made of MDF cuts.

Thank you for now (time to sleep).

In fact this is a kind of error, I think the model inherited some misplacement when the MRI was done.
How do you think the cplane could help?

Hi Angelo, re: distribute to arrange parallel planar objects

Do you also mean having a initial starting position with all those objects in one single plane?

If so, then I don't really know how I could accomplish that very easily, since there would not be any really straightforward method for a piece of code to automatically recognize how to assign an ordering to all those pieces.

It would probably take some kind of sophisticated artificial intelligence or pattern recognition or something along those lines...

- Michael

>>>In fact this is a kind of error, I think the model inherited some misplacement when the MRI was done.
How do you think the cplane could help?

Well, the misalignment was giving the things I was trying problems which is why I started suggesting other methods.

It appears that the misalignment may be "Uniform" or universal. (As you said from the original model.

If the "rotation" could be determined then you could add a new Cplane that would make all the geometry "perpendicular" and methods like extrude would work better.

I tried to do some trims of the curves to follow up with my thought, but MoI balked. I WAS on my wifes lessor power computer at the time and I could try to do smaller sections at a time.

I like what your doing and will follow up more to see if my solution could be viable. For me it would be, "What takes longer?" redoing the geometry you have to accomplish your setup, or breaking the curves with a couple horizontal planes and using those pieces to identify the points, then a second set of full wires to assemble.

Can you make the MRI available here?

@ Angelo
If your material is metal cord my method above will work !
(no need to have perfect orientation inside Plexiglass rectangular, cylindric as shown by Michael or any forms )
filled rectangular holes for example

I am just curious how you can place these wires without deformation inside the plexiglass :)

Ps Your original on top view is not exactly fit to the grid, (// & Perpendicular) is that normal?

Another method more easy and keeping the orientation of wires inside the plexiglass!

Seems that is a valid solution ;)
And you can move all lines in one one move!

Hi Pilou,

>>without deformation inside the plexiglass

A possible solution would be to wind Pianowire(Springwire)
around a Pianowire and then shape it the way you want.

Hi Michael,

>Do you also mean having a initial starting position with all those objects in one single plane?.

Not exactly, I mean objects in different parallel planes uneven spaced.
And then you could distribute by center or entering some value for spacing.

Angelo

Hi folks,

Project a little bit suspended. I'm doing some physical work by now...
Cutting and assembling wood.
I think that I will rework the proposition, not by the problems found when drawing but because there are some bad formulated esthetical questions (bad English...)

Angelo

Hi Angelo,

> Not exactly, I mean objects in different parallel planes uneven spaced.
> And then you could distribute by center or entering some value for spacing.

In that case, for the situation where you were concerned about possibly having hundreds of objects, you would still need to ensure that each one of those objects was placed at a unique location separate from all the others.

Since you have to move each object anyway, you can create some point markers beforehand at the proper distances, and just place each object in its correct position right when you first move it. I think that would actually help to ensure that you've got each slice in a unique location too.

Here's the way that would work - say you have these slices:



Create a point object (Draw curve / More / Point) in that plane:



Replicate the point object using Transform / Array / Dir, for the second point you can enter in a distance constraint by clicking in the "d" field in the bottom toolbar (beneath the XYZ input and to the right of the view tabs) to control the distance between each of the points:



Then to place a slice, select it:



And then run Transform/Move. For the base point, pick the original point, or if it is located at 0,0,0 you can type in 0 <enter> for the first point:



For the offset point, pick the target marker:



That will help to ensure each slice is separate, and also place it into its correct position all at the same time. To repeat, you adjust the selection after you finish one Move, and then use Right-click inside of a viewport to repeat the Move command.

Also it may not be a bad idea to delete the target point you just used, so that you know that the last one is always the new target.

Later on if you want to adjust the spacing, that is possible using the Transform / Scale / Scale1D command.

Go to a side view, and pick the base point of the scale to be at the base point location, pick the first reference point of the scale to be on the first section, and then the final reference point of the scale will adjust the spacing for you, like this:



That works because Scale1D only alters things along one direction. If that direction is normal to a planar object's plane then it will have this effect of moving the object by a scale factor towards or away from the scale origin.


I hope that helps!

- Michael

Here is one way to quickly automate the bores for your wire to pass through the plates. You will need the plugin mentioned in this thread: http://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2755.1

1- draw a straight line on center of your skull profiles to trim them in half. I noticed your profiles are not symetrical but it is close enough.

2- This will make a 2d point cloud for you to use the copy to points script mentioned above.

3- delete half of your skul profile for easy selection later.

4-5 add a cylinder on center with a large enough diameter for your wires to pass through. These will be the holes you will be punching through the dividers.

6-7 select all your profiles and turn on "show points" and then select all the points on the centerline and copy and paste them.

8- select all your profile lines and then hide them. Now you see the point locations on your plane.

9- run the "copytopoints" script selecting the cylinder and the points and it will replicate the cylinders on all the points.

10-11 You now end up with this result and you start booleans to remove the cylinders from the plate leaving result 11.








I hope this helps. This is kind of similar to kids putting lots of nails in boards and wrapping different color string around them to make geometric patterns.

So some solutions :)

PS @Angelo: Nice site's Gallery!

Hi Angelo, it occured to me this morning that this process of moving slices into their precise target location can be mostly automated pretty easily.

I've attached a custom plug-in command here called MoveSliceToPoint.js which can be used for this.

To install it, download it and copy it into the \commands sub-folder inside of the MoI 2.0 beta's main installation folder (it may also work with v1, I have not tested it there though). Then set up a keyboard shortcut and for the command put in: MoveSliceToPoint

Now when you activate that keyboard shortcut it will launch the command.


This command expects a setup of point objects like this:




You can draw a point object using Draw curve / More / Point, and then make a duplicate of it at your desired spacing using Transform / Array / Dir, use a distance constraint by using the "d" field in the bottom toolbar to control the spacing for the array.

It assumes that the point object closest to 0,0,0 is the starting point that is on the plane of the objects, and the point object furthest from 0,0,0 is the target point.

To use the command, select the outermost curve (the one that should be moved to the end), like this:




And then press the keyboard shortcut to launch the command. It will move the selected object to the furthest target point, and then remove that target point:




So because that target point was removed, now it is all set up to select the next curve and repeat the command by a right-click to move it into place, and so forth. So you can rapidly move a bunch of slices into place with this method by just by repeated select + right click, select + right click, etc...


This should help to greatly speed up the arrangement of slices like this, here is a screencap of it in action:



I hope this may help out the next time you have to arrange a large number of slices like this.

- Michael

Does it possible to have a script who make that?
of course curves lines given beeing as on your drawing in order of size ;)

In sketchup i have made a script (my first ruby script with some helps :) who can make that :)
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=20313&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

If this is going to be done with automation then it is not a 3d operation. It would be done in 2d. Getting a "point" where the wire intersects each side of the plexiglass would be what is required. One point = Drill. Where there is a diaganol cut, the 2 points for each side would be connected then the "slot" would be created with a profile cut. If this was my stategy, I would ask if there was a script to connect 2 points with a line to speed this part of the process up. So in summary:

Can the Isect command place a point where the wire enters and exits the solid?

Can I automatically connect 2 points?

These along with the previous "spacing script" Michael made would create this part "as is".

I would then bring that file into my cam package and drill all points, then profile cut all the line entities.

Hi Pilou,

> Does it possible to have a script who make that?

Sorry, I don't understand.... What is it that you want the script to make?

If you want to move slices into different parallel locations, then yes, that's what the script that I just posted can be used for.

- Michael

Hi Michael, superb this plugin!
What happens if I have the slices not all near the starting point and beneath the target point?
Let's say if I have a compressed target space? A space smaller them the space occupied by the unarranged slices?





(I'm thinking to put some mention to MOI, or at least at you, on my exhibit catalog)

Angelo

< What is it that you want the script to make?
just about that ;)
curves ordered on a line as like your animation, because here you have 10 lines but if 500? :)
(like in a map of terrain levels)

Hi Grendel, thanks for this suggestion. I'm trying it right now. Perhaps I'll shave some slices before.

tx
Angelo