Posts made by Ampa

Utter genius - Congratulations

I love DonationCoder - Blog / Forum. It is a fantastic friendly source of wonderful software and helpful advice.

http://libspiro.sourceforge.net/

LibSpiro is an Open Source implimentation of the Spiro algorithm. It should be possible to see how it all works from the example / source code.

Also... http://www.levien.com/spiro/ is the site of the inventor.

FARR (Find and Run Robot) is a superb launcher (and much more). [Donationware though free registration is also available]

Fast, non-intrusive, infinitely extendable via aliases and plugins (which can be written in almost any language), with many useful addons already available.

Plus it is supported by the DonationCoder community, who are the kindest, most reliably helpful crowd on the interweb (present company excepted).

Can't believe this has no replies! Looks like a nice little addition to the SU toolset - gonna have a toy with it right now to see what I can come up with.

Thank you for sharing your work

Ampa

PS - +1 for the superb documentation!

Wow! This has now officially crossed the line from 'pretty darned impressive' to "stunning".

Thank you for sharing this with the community.

Ampa

These are very common in Japan (where space is limited everywhere!). There is a slight inconvenience in that you have to straddle the toilet bowl (or kneel / stand on it - if you are short) but over all the design works well.

The soapy water does go into the cistern, but I'd imagine that it is watered down significantly since you don't use nearly as much water to wash your hands as it takes to fill the flush mechanism.

Ampa

Nice

I was thinking about tiles last night because I'd like to model a circular tower with a tiled roof. It occurred to me that I have no idea how it is done - not just in SU but in real life!

I guess there are various techniques - I would need one that was medieval. I am imagining flat tiles, perhaps slates, that essentially form a cone. Should the individual tiles get smaller nearer the tip? The number of tiles per revolution will obviously decrease as the circumference decreases, so how do you ensure that the gaps between tiles line up correctly?

Here is a photo like I describe... http://www.bostwickroofing.com/images/slate_tile2.jpg

Jeff: Your corkscrew is great, the video really shows just how quick it should be. I agree with you that the 'red shockwave' click animation is a bit over the top, though it does make it very clear when yu have clicked!

I think the idea that I've not yet addopted is adding dummy geometry to act as a rotation point / guide for my model.

Here is a render of a similar corkscrew (not as pretty as yours though, too compact!)

Thanks for taking the time out, to help a relative noob!

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Thanks for the lates round of ideas.

Alan / Remus: Yep smaller increments seems to help. I have a nice smooth barrel roll, and loop the loop

Jeff: Soap Skin is an interesting idea, I'll toy with that too

Next issue: Both examples so far use rotation about 1 axis, and in the case of the loop a displacement along a second axis. But I'd also like to try an arrow with rotation about two axies, such as a loop with a roll.

I've tried this a couple of times using the rectangle > push-pull > rotate > copy > rotate into place technique BUT I can't seem to make the copy match perfectly with the original. I am sure it is possible. I am obviously rotating in the wrong order, or about the wrong point. Perhaps someone can show me the way?

Thanks again, Ampa.

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Thanks Alan for the idea.

I tried your method: it is indeed pretty simple and no slower than fiddling with the rubies.

When I render the model (and indeed it is visible in native SketchUp) the bottom 6 segments are not as smooth as the rest.

Why is this? Is there anything that I can do about it?

As before, your help is appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge.

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Tried again using helix.rb (rather than drawhelix.rb) but get the same kind of results.

Where is the twist coming from?

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PMiller: Thanks for the input. I thought that I had tried ungrouping and softening all the edges, but I was holding the wrong key (shift instead of control) and therefore hiding, rather than softening, the edges. I'll try again.

UPDATE: Softening didn't make a great deal of difference. I am sure that theis is because the individual sections remain discrete, they have not glued themselves together. So there are hard edges which can be softened between each section.

Pilou: Using your suggestion I find a problem - the cross section shape twists as it climbs the spiral. Take a look at the attachment to see what I mean.

Thanks for the help so far. Any more suggestions gratefully received.

Ampa

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4 steps showing the unwanted twist effect.

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A couple of thoughts...

1. SketchyPhysics uses various approximations of shape as bounding boxes. The default is box, so I suspect that the ball will be sitting on top of the invisible bounding box surrounding the slope.

To correct this: select the slope, right click and choose SketchyPhysics > Shape > StaticMesh.

2. If you then find that the ball falls through the slope, it is probable that you have the reverse face pointing up. So select the face of the slope, and reverse the face.

Now all should work.

Here is my best attempt so far...

I drew a rectangle. Created a copy which I rotated by 3.6 degrees. I then stitched the two together by hand and softened all the lines.

Finally I used the Grow.rb plugin to create 100 copies, rotating each by 3.6 degrees.

Issues: The twist is very stripy, perhaps because each box is a seperate object that is not actually joined to its neighbours?

Ampa

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Hello experts,

I would like to model a series of 3D arrows (ie. they have thickness) that show a twist or loop in 3D space. I've attached an example that was put together in 3D Studio Max.

I can't think how to go about modeling this shape in SketchUp.

I would ultimately like to have a variety of arrow shapes with features such as loop-the-loop, barrel roll and other types of aerial maneuver.

Any help greatly appreciated

Ampa

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Here is a work around... just set the date on your computer back a year!

Ampa