[Plugin] Control points ver. 1.6.

[mitcorb]

Well, you know I was joking. Actually, on a second viewing, and with more time to watch it through, the concept was clear enough. The details- commands, tool selections, sequence and so forth will take a little longer for me.
However, on one viewing, it is clear that this is a significant development. Congratulations.

[poru]

Wow, amazing
Thank you

[rumcajs]

Great plugin. I look forward to create some terrain with it. But I have to confess I have some problems when I try to move the control power ... it is hard to me to focus the control point and it costs a lot of waiting till the red frame appears there. Sometimes I click, but it is too late, and the red frame disappeared so I have to remove the point. It looks slow for my computer even that my comp is not so bad on performance. I cannot to do it so fast as you do in demo video. Some key to remove node, for example backspace, would be very practical. I do it with context menu, which is slow. One more idea. It would be great if I could enter the power immediately whey I click on the terrain. I think that if I write the number in Measurement box, it does nothing... Also confider that that maps are done in different numbers. You have some terrain, for example altitude 700 and above. But if you add the power number to nodes like 700 or 725 and so on, so it will be too much for the terrain. To save the calculation for human, you could make one extra box, where user will write his base altitude like 700. Then he could write the number from a map and you would subtract the 700 from his number to get the correct number. So for example. I need to get these altitudes from the map to the terrain model: 712, 745, 765, 815, 922. I will enter value 700 as the base value. Then I create control points and I write to the Measurements box: 712 for first node, 745 for second node, 765 for 3rd node and so on. In the meantime the program will count: 712-700=12, 745-700=45, 765-700=65, 815-700=115, 922-700=222... And here are the correct sizes for my model... This is practical issue. Never mind if you would keep both values in the node...

[vojo]

Can somebody actually explain how to use this tool

• Move appears to be some fraction of the movement of the actual control point
• scale is not obvious but once you play around you get the idea, I see the intent although it too is a fraction of the actual scaling so again not sure the value
• etc

I tried playing with the power setting 0, 1, 3, 10....doesnt seem to make a difference

What I would have assumed this does is:

• Add some control points
• If I move / scale the control points, movement / scaling based on power
  (ie if power = 1.0...then a 1:1 movement or scaling....power = 10...then 10:1...etc)

ya know, it would be good if a given plugin does what it says it will do
Some guys write solid plugins with good doc (Freddo)... others (to remain nameless) have
some plugins as advertised while others dont deliver even the basics (with some of them
appearing to be an exercise in ruby programming vs providing some actual useful function).

Given this store idea....maybe somebody should have a clearing house on plugins to ensure
quality. Require good doc or (video would be fine but since the videos for this plugin dont load....pointless), ensure the plugin actually does its stated function, etc

I guess its me....who knew that "affecting geometry" did not mean some sort of 1:1 relationship

[vojo]

One more thing. Since so many of these plugins are garbage and dont know that until have installed, the store (or a plugin) should have a feature that tracks how often a plugin is used. That way a user can clean up the garbage once a quarter or once a year

[thomthom]

@vojo said:

Since so many of these plugins are garbage

You might want to consider that people who spent their time on these plugins offered them for free. They might not be perfect, they might not be doing what you had hoped what they do - but please show some respect.

[kirill2008]

@thomthom said:

• but please show some respect.

Thomas thank you for that
But actually vojo is right: it would be nice at least to mark (in some more or less obvious manner) things, which became obsolete. Erasing posts or attachments or any other erasing maybe an unsafe action, but marking is totally OK and it would inform a user an obvious way.
As for this particular thread, I edited the original post to inform people that it became obsolete and provided a link to a new thread and I'll do the same thing with all other obsolete plugins I posted here right now.
I think the good karma is to be responsible for what I've made no matter how I offer results of my efforts (for free or not)

[rv1974]

Kirill thank you for your efforts- very promising tools
P.S. I'd make your videos X1.5-2 times faster, будет намного веселее

[kirill2008]

@rv1974 said:

Kirill thank you for your efforts- very promising tools
P.S. I'd make your videos X1.5-2 times faster, будет намного веселее

Thanks for your compliment!
Initially I used speed acceleration for some of demo-videos, but then I've been reported, that accelerated speed confuses viewer (even when I mention about acceleration somehow in video description). So I decided at last not to mess with speed of a footage in order to demonstrate actual processing performance.
It would be more funny if I'll make plugins work faster instead of making videos faster

[rv1974]

@kirill2008 said:

.
It would be more funny if I'll make plugins work faster instead of making videos faster

Верной дорогой идете, товарищ!

[vojo]

Krill....I did download thru the store but since one can not interrogate a script in RBZ format....I downloaded the old one to understand (buried deep in the code is a "pwr*3" statement which, on its face, would throw the whole thing off...ie. pwr= 1/3 might get somebody a 1:1 ration).

As far as my cantankerous tone, it really comes down to this "if somebody is going to dance, then they need to pay the band" Meaning if somebody writes a plugin (free or not) that does not provide the advertised function, then they should accept the criticism and scrutiny"

If a car mechanic offers to fix your car for free but instead really messes it up, are you happy since it was free???? No....free or note, you agreed to have the mech fix it. If I wanted to become an auto mech so I could fix it myself (since the other mech messed it up), I would. Sort of the whole fallacy of open source: Caters to the group the loves to spend hours tinkering with their car vs using the car to get somehwere to get something else done. I dont know about you guys, but even if I wanted to spend hours working on my car, who has that kind of time.

[thomthom]

Report bugs and make suggestions - that's all good, just watch the tone of your language and be courteous.

[kirill2008]

@vojo said:

pwr= 1/3 might get somebody a 1:1 ration).

Not sure I got you right, but actually ruby interprets the above code sequence such a way that "pwr=1/3" is literally the same as "pwr=0".
You may try that at ruby console by yourself.

In case if you need to enter somewhere a fractional value you should use floating point values.

And I must say that actually all plugins I made provide all 'advertised' functions. I never claim any feature unless it actually present (I have no idea why should I do it).

[vojo]

point taken about fixed vs floating.

The real point I was trying to make is that, on the face of things, the pwr factor should not be scaled by 3 or 3.0 since that throws everything off. I.e. since power not documented, a user may try 1.0 thinking he gets a 1:1 movement (or at least see that the movement is some linear relationship between the control points...for example, I could see that if the right control point moved and left does not, some sort of half way or avg be done). However, if there is some correction value inside the plugin, its pretty hard for the end user to figure out the value of power that corrects for that so he gets some sort of predictable behavior (the way this is now....set power to some number and get some movoement...do it again and a non intuitive less movement....do it a third time and virtually no movement)

[driven]

@vojo said:

since one can not interrogate a script in RBZ format....

it's just a 'zip' by any other name. change .rbz to .zip open with your zip tool than open in an editor... john

[kirill2008]

First of all I have to agree that the plugin is poorly documented, far from intuitive and obsolete after all... I just have to say that initially my intentions were purely good. I wanted to make a tool that may help to model something more complicated than just a basic geometry. It was not intended to make anyone mad or frustrated. Vojo, please accept my apologies for having failed to meet expectations.

@vojo said:

I.e. since power not documented, a user may try 1.0 thinking he gets a 1:1 movement (or at least see that the movement is some linear relationship between the control points...

Speaking specifically about the term "power" I must say I really was not aware about the fact it might be misinterpreted such a way. "Power" means literally "power" here in a mathematical sense (not a linear coefficient or a factor). Actually I gave some more or less explicit explanations here in this thread about how it all works earlier (about three years ago):

@kirill2008 said:

The second method calculates offset vectors lengths of each vertex according to distances from it to all control points. The degree of influence of each control c-point depends on <1/(distance^power)>. Power is an adjustable value.

You may check the original comment here: http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=323&t=22709&start=60#p218438

In other words algorithm utilizes a type of deterministic method for multivariate interpolation with a known scattered set of points which is known as "inverse distance weighting" (IDW): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_distance_weighting
Plugin interpolates offset value (support of rotation and scale transformations were also added later).

Anyway I highly recommend to stop discussion at this point, because discussion of an obsolete plugin is a kind of pointless to my mind.
Everyone else who was confused please also accept my apologies for not informing about the fact that this plugin has become obsolete at a time.