Hi Michael,

My apologies, here at work when we refer to construction lines we mean any curve used for construction, so that includes circles, arcs and lines, I'll have to remember to converse in MoItalk when posting something in the forum to avoid confusion.

As for bendy curves, it just sounded like a good idea, but to be truthful I don't know where I would use such a function unless it can be used for more artistic 2d stuff.

Hope I didn't take up too much of your time ?

Cheers

Hi Danny, I see - so yeah I sort of got on the wrong track when you mentioned construction lines, sorry about that.


> As for bendy curves, it just sounded like a good idea, but to
> be truthful I don't know where I would use such a function
> unless it can be used for more artistic 2d stuff.

But I'm not sure that there actually exists a proper equivalent solution with bendy curves.

There could be a solution for bendy curves if we were talking about the kind of "averaging the endpoints" type method though.


> Hope I didn't take up too much of your time ?

Nope, that one was quite easy to do and only took a few minutes. I'll see if I can cook up the proper one for you now though, it will be a bit more involved but should not be too bad.

One question though is how long would you expect for the bisector line to be, should it have one endpoint at where the original lines would intersect when extended? Then how far along it would you want the other endpoint?

- Michael

Hi Danny, also one other question - what should it generate in cases like the following where the 2 lines already cross or touch one another:



Should it generate 2 bisector lines in situations like those?

And again, how long should the bisector lines be, maybe instead of 2 bisectors for stuff like that, should it make 4 lines that all have one endpoint on the intersection point? Or just 2 longer lines that go through the intersection point?

- Michael

Hi Michael,

> One question though is how long would
> you expect for the bisector line to be

mmm, good question. It doesn't really matter as long as there is a line bisecting the angle between the two lines, what ever is easier, maybe the average length of the input lines, in NX it starts from the intersection of the two lines and allows you interactively stretch the line to whatever length you want from that point, like a normal draw line function, but that wouldn't be necessary.

I'm not really fussed about the bendy option, as I said it sounded like a good idea at the time, but if anyone else has a use for it by all means.

-

Hi Michael,

> what should it generate in cases like
> the following where the 2 lines already
> cross or touch one another:

I would expect this:



> maybe instead of 2 bisectors for stuff like
> that, should it make 4 lines that all have
> one endpoint on the intersection point?
> Or just 2 longer lines that go through the intersection point?

Now you've lost me. I'm only expecting one line as in the picture above.

-

Hi Danny, here's an example of 2 possible bisector lines where there are 2 crossing lines:



Or here's the kind that would be 2 long lines that go through the intersection point, rather than ending at the intersection point:




In order to make 1 line I've got to use some kind of metric to choose between these possibilities, is there some rule that you can describe about which one to choose? Something like "take the direction that has the smallest angle, and go to the side of the intersection that has the largest amount of the lines on it" ?

- Michael

Hi Danny, so here's a new version which I think will do the proper result that you want, but I guess you may want to do a couple of trial runs and check the output to make sure.

When lines are crossing, it will put the endpoint towards the side that has the greater length of line on it, here are some sample results:



- Michael

Hi Danny, also here is an alternate version of that latest one that is set up for "post-pick" only which also allows the repeat checkbox.

Ah ok, I understand. Is it possible to get the desired side if we pick near the ends of the lines of the side we want the bisector line ?




-

Hi Danny,

> Is it possible to get the desired side if we pick near the
> ends of the lines of the side we want the bisector line ?

That could be possible in v3, but currently that pick side information is not available for scripts to access so I don't have any good way of making a plug-in do that right now.

So what I did instead was just use the side that has a greater length of line sticking out from the intersection point.

It looks like you were writing this reply just as I was posting a couple of other messages, so look back a couple of messages for the updated plug-in that hopefully does the proper thing now.. :)

- Michael

Also with crossing lines, if you wanted the direction than what was generated, it's actually easy to draw it in with perpendicular straight snap from the one that was created.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

> So what I did instead was just use the side
> that has a greater length of line sticking out
> from the intersection point.

That's fine, there wouldn't be many situations where the input lines would be crossing.
The script is good now, after all that :)

Thanks again! and thanks Burr.

-

I think for V3 the pick points for the start and end of the bisector would be good. That would eliminate trimming if you wanted the line to start at some other point than the intersection. That will handle direction for any situation also.

Hi Burr, yeah maybe in v3 one possibility would be to make it put in 2 crossing construction lines so that then you could snap on to the points you wanted on those to make the lines.

But also right now instead of using trimming you can just draw in a second line using the first one to snap on to (with construction lines also) which may be a bit easier than using Trim.

- Michael

Hi Anis,

> Can you give me screenshot sample usage in your project ?

It comes in handy when you are quickly laying out construction curves (not to be confused with MoI construction lines) at angles to keep symmetry and reference, here are some progressive screen shots of a simple layout that I want to keep the two lines central to a rectangle.

We'll start off with the original lines I posted.


Once you've got a bisector line created (thanks to Michael).


You can use it as a reference knowing it is in the center of the two lines.
Then you can do offset operations....


as well as run perpendicular lines.


After a bit of trimming and extending you know that the two lines we started with are central and perpendicular to the blue rectangle.


For this case you could start off symmetrical about the origin and rotate the whole thing at the desired angle once constructed, this is just a simple example, usually I'll use bisector line if the two lines shown are referenced at an angle off another set of curves or lines.

Cheers

Thanks Danny! Added to reference!!!! :o

ALso Michael...I renamed and kept "LineMorph"....:)

Hey Burr, so your heads up turned out to be pretty spiffy after all... :)


> ALso Michael...I renamed and kept "LineMorph"....:)

Could you please post it here as an attachment in case someone wants that version after all?

- Michael

:).... LineMorph as originally posted in this thread...Unzip and copy the htm and js file to your commands directory, and then create a shortcut with LineMorph as the command. (Or optionally while in MoI, just hit "TAB" and then type LineMorph)

[EDIT] Updated to add the "Post operation" version also, as talked about in the thread....[EDIT]

LineMorph is the name of the previous BisectorLine name or it's other?
can you put the number of the message of it?

And there is not more the plug that gives exactly this? (length = middle of 2 between Start End lines)

Hi Pilou,

> LineMorph is the name of the previous BisectorLine name or it's other?

Yes, it's the first version of BisectorLine that I posted, but renamed.


> can you put the number of the message of it?

It was the one I posted here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3745.6


> And there is not more the plug that gives exactly this?
> (length = middle of 2 between Start End lines)

That is what LineMorph will do - it will build a new line that has endpoints half-way between the other line's endpoints. Note that this is a different result than half the angle between the 2 lines though.

The newer BisectorLine (posted at http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3745.41) will create a line at half of the angle between where the extended lines meet.

- Michael