Can we improve ExtrudeEdgebyRails? (add options)

thomthom

I moved this into the developer section. Sorry for any confusion that might cause - but we're trying to keep the Plugin section an index only.

JClements

Looks very promising and seems to me that it would be easier to use and be more predictable.

Thanks, TIG for all your hardwork. What will 2010 bring? Hard to imagine.

John

juan974

Edit first post

pilou

The principal problem is avoid cracks between each existant sides!

TIG

@unknownuser said:

The principal problem is avoid cracks between existing sides!

The good news is that EEbyRv2 - yet to be unleashed - ensures that the 2 rails and 2 profiles selected are kept so now there are no 'cracks'; however, the number of facets increases dramatically with unmatched segment counts - especially if the rails AND profiles have unmatched segment counts - especially if there's no common factors.
equal segment-counts for rails + profiles =
5&5 & 5&5 =>> 5x5 = 25 =>> 50 facets [remember that quads are triangulated so we need to x2]
10&10 & 10&10 =>> 10x10 = 100 =>> 200 facets [x2 the mesh edges =>> x4 the mesh facets]
Paired segments with a common factor increase by a bigger amount, but still not too unwieldy - here it's x4 for a mesh that has x2 the edge segments =
10&5 & 10&5 =>> 10x10 = 100 =>> 200 facets [same number of mesh facets from far fewer mesh edges]
BUT a similar segment-count but with no common factor give enormously faceted meshes =
10&9 & 10&9 =>> 90x90 = 8,100 =>> 16,200 facets !!!
However, this subdivision method WILL give a properly 'smooth' mesh.
However, there is an alternative algorithm that I am trying to incorporate, which takes the segment count of the most segmented rail/profile as the maximum and projects back 'triangulated wedges' of mesh to a repeated vertex position on the rail/profile with the fewer segments, these 'wedges' will be positioned as evenly as possible along that rail/profile.
I'll probably introduce an extra warning dialog if the facet-count gets above a certain limit - say ~1,000 - which will tell you that it could take some time to make a 'perfect mesh' because you have [stupidly] made the rails/edges with awkwardly uneven segment-counts: and then offering you the chance to 'Cancel' and fix it manually & retry, or answer 'No' to go for the quicker [but simpler and less perfect] mesh, or 'Yes' to carry on as you are and wait for the very faceted mesh to finish processing... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I hope to have something published early this coming week...
Merry Christmas!

pilou

It's not an easy thing to convert an box modeling prog to a nurbs one
Happy new year and see you the next one

JClements

TIG,

I am wondering if, through your recent experimentation with different algorithms for your "railing" scripts, that a better means for creating a terrain from contours could be developed (v.s. the sandbox method which often requires so much time consuming and tedious cleanup)?

John

pilou

@unknownuser said:

over 30°C (86°F) for christmas do you believe that ?

No

juan974

@unknownuser said:

tig wrote : However, there is an alternative algorithm that I am trying to incorporate, which takes the segment count of the most segmented rail/profile as the maximum and projects back 'triangulated wedges' of mesh to a repeated vertex position on the rail/profile with the fewer segments, these 'wedges' will be positioned as evenly as possible along that rail/profile.

what do you think about :

do you think is a good way?

EDIT : is not a good way, i was thinking about low difference between segments's rails, but dont works for big difference ...

merry christmas to all, joyeux noel zot toute
over 30°C (86°F) for christmas do you believe that ?

driven

hi Tig,

just a thought, I and it seems quite a few people use fredo's polyline segmentor before using eebyrails, loft, blend, etc..

so, would it be possible to simply call up that tool from within EER2 if a potential problem is found?

john