Karsten et al,

I'm attempting to build a toroidal helix form.
The coil rail works well but I am experiencing difficulty attaching the profile for sweeping.
I've output x,y.x info from inputs to generative array into point&frame for circle ,
and at first it appears to be on the right track, however as the animation shows
changing the coil size shifts the profile from the starting point of the rail.
As a consequence the sweep does not give the desired result.

Any thoughts?

-James

Hello James,

Good to hear, that you still make experiments:-)
I had a look on your file. There are two problems in my opinion. First - the placement of the circle dosen't fit allways with the startpoint of the railcurve and the second problem is the orientatiion of the u-and v-line. I think the "sweepnode" is difficult to handle and we have to think about, how we can make it easier to use. The name sweep is also not very handy - any ideas? For the orientation it would be also better, if the iCurve-Node would give a frame for start and endpoint, but I didn't find a solution for that at the moment. And I think a native sweep node would also be very useful. I've attached a changed file, that isn't perfect (orientation of the profile dosen't fit) but works in a first step. I hope that you can find a solution based on it. To analyse the problem, I have cloned some objects and gave them to the output - so cut the wires or delete the clone-nodes.

Have a nice day
Karsten

Thanks Karsten,
That is an improvement, but I have not had any luck with profile orientation.

RE: "The name sweep is also not very handy - any ideas?"
Perhaps Array_along_path.

Thanks again
-James

Hello James,
yes, I agree with you! Very difficult. Nomally PDE, but not usefull to handle. I think about the idea to calculate start and endframe of curves. Maybe it is possible to calculate it with approx. secants and a Lagrange Interpolation to get start-/end-tangent. I don't know how much work it is at the Moment and which precision we will get, but that can simplify the Problem alot. Another solution could be a simple Helix and flow it to circle - only if you really need a solution next time.

Array_along_path -sounds good!
Have a nice day
Karsten

Hello Karsten,

RE: "To analyse the problem, I have cloned some objects and gave them to the output - so cut the wires or delete the clone-nodes."

I also find this a useful practice. A nice implementation would be a "Preview" checkbox in the info panel. This would achieve the same effect without redundant wiring.

Have a great weekend
-James

Hello James,

a preview is possible, but I think that we need also a checkbox, because editing text is not very effective with a lot of nodes - so we have to wait till Max next release. Nevertheless I am working on the problem to place profiles normal to curves, I have made a new node that gives also a approximated startpoint frame. It sometimes crashes, but at the moment I can't figure out why - . The deviation to a tangent snapped line is between 0.0002deg and 0.008deg in my first test. Maybe someone will have a look to improve it or have some tipps.

Have a nice day
Karsten

Hello James,

I have fixed the problem :-)



Have a nice weekend
Karsten

More and more powerful!

Hello,

here are some new nodes for playing: Curvature-Analyse, Sweep ...

A nice day to all
Karsten

Hello Kirsten

Sorry I have not replied before now; I have been away for a few weeks.

>fixed the problem :-)

Yes that is much better thanks.
The new sweep node does the job perfectly.

I greatly appreciate your work on these
James

Hello James,

I'm glad that it works:-) and an aesthetically result, also. An idea that I got, while I'm looking to the pictures: If you want to control the diameter depending on the curvature of your rail, I have made a node for that in the Infonode.js. It calculates the minR and maxR of curves. This could be used to avoid squeezed surfaces. I didn't made a tryout, but maybe also an interessting experiment:-)

Have a nice day
Karsten

Hello Karsten,

many thanks to you and Max, for your efforts on the NodeEditor project!

I would have liked to be better skilled in geometry and in mathematics, in order to join the coding of this plugin...

But anyway.....could you please share a link where is possible to get the complete NodeEditor project, in it's current stage of developing ?

A sort of repository where it would be easier get all the most recent versions of all the project files,
rather then get all the stuff here and there in the forum's threads.

Thanks again and have a nice day,

Marco.

Hi Marco,

For the nodes editor, I think the most recent release is here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=7713.76

and the installation instructions are here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=7713.34


> A sort of repository where it would be easier get all the most recent versions of
> all the project files, rather then get all the stuff here and there in the forum's threads.

Max has a repository of his plug-ins here, except I don't think the node editor is in there yet:
http://moi.maxsm.net/media/files/

For now you would need to get it from the above forum thread.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your reply. It contains all i need for Max's code.

And...in order to get Karsten's contribution also ?

Where to look for ?

Thanks both and nice day.

Marco.

Hello Marco,

everything is in this thread:-)

Have a nice day
Karsten

Ok Michael,

i'll search here more deeply, as soon as i can...

Thanks and good job.

Marco.

Hello James,

combination with the curvature seems to work.Here is picture.

Have a nice day
Karsten

And a rendering of the bridgetest:-)

Hello James, Hello Al,

@ James: based on Maxs Concat node I have made a node called Concat2 - it's possible to modify the input and output type by RMB. It's not perfect, because there are some lines in Max code, I don't understand. Nevertheless, it should work for your needs.

@ Al: At the moment Blend only can process 2 edges:-( and Yes, it's not ease to understand how it works, but it's not easy to find a solution for that. I think, the Moi API isn't made for that. In the next days I will have a look for the G0-option.

A nice day to all
Karsten

Hi Karsten,

Thank you for concat2 node, it is exactly what I wanted.
I hope it is useful for others as well.

Cheers for that!

-James