For some reason, the boundingbox command is being thrown off by some helixes (sp?). A helix 6" long, 1" rad, with 800 turns gives a faulty result. I fooled around a bit and used odd numbers for all the variables and it still happens. Seems to be happeing with #s higher than 500 or so, but I just don't see the trend as to why.

Hi Nick, thanks for reporting this!

I would basically suggest not creating a helix with such a large number of turns in it though - that will end up with a single curve that has a very large number of control points in it.

You are likely running into some limit in the geometry library's analysis routines, since several analysis functions will produce a linearized version of the curve (with even more points in it) to use during the analysis.

I may be able to adjust that limit but it may not really be worth it since you probably can't use such an enormously complex curve for things like creating surfaces without running out of all available memory on your machine.

Is there some particular reason why you are trying to create one with so many turns in it?

One thing that a lot of programs do to prevent bug reports relating to running out of memory like this is to artifically limit inputs to restrict them to some "reasonable" level, like for example 50 turns or something like that.

I don't usually like to do that since there is not always a single limit that works on every machine since machines with more memory in them can usually handle more than a lower-end machine.

But do you think it would be better if there were input limits in place to prevent the creation of hugely complex objects?

- Michael

I use helixes for cnc toolpathing. Typically, these have 500-1000 turns, but I'm more interested in the stepover, which is usually 0.007-0.010.

I don't really care about the bounding box on helixes like this, but I thought I'd mention the problem since it came up.

If its not a bug, but rather a safeguard, I wouldn't give it another thought if I was Mr.MoI.

Thank you for your attention. :-)

-Nick

Hi Nick - I was able to track down the spot that had the limit in it and increase it so that the helix you posted here will work properly in the next beta release.

- Michael