space something along curve

Driving Rhino4, pretty much a rhino noob.

Am trying to put something along a curve at a known interval. Have tried pipe and extrude curve, but not enough control except by setting max edge in file save.

Would love to be able to say, start extrude from crv end, and place object at interval X, and follow the curve (so object always points forward along curve).

So face have problems with pipe (sections are missing, possibly due to max edge settings on file save).

Not certain how I can build a small box of known dimensions and then snap it to be perpendicular to the curve end, and then populate along the curve with the correctly oriented box.

Some screenshots are from other 3d app. Suggestions how I can accomplish the extrusion (upgrade suggestions not helpful, I need to do this in v4 if at all possible).

Thanks for checking in.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Hammond on February 15, 2013 at 10:23am

Not certain how I can build a small box of known dimensions and then snap it to be perpendicular to the curve end, and then populate along the curve with the correctly oriented box.

you can use OrientOnCrv to get the object perpendicular to the curve then ArrayCrv to populate.

(that is, if i understand correctly what you're trying to accomplish ;) )

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Allen on February 15, 2013 at 10:24am

I will give that a shot Jeff - many thanks for the quick reply.

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Allen on February 15, 2013 at 11:17am

Almost works - no idea why the feature doesn't match, but will poke at it some more.

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rhinoArrayCrv_Almost.jpg, 45 KB

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Allen on February 15, 2013 at 11:43am

Hm - it seems this operation wants a planar curve, judging from my results so far. Viewed from the top, it seems a perfect operation. Perspective shows some issues with the freeform option.

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rhinoArrayCrv_Almost2.jpg, 43 KB

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Permalink Reply by JT on February 15, 2013 at 1:44pm

I tried this with ArrayCurve - roadlike and it seems to work fine. If I understand what you're trying to do...

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ROADLIKE.jpg, 178 KB

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Allen on February 15, 2013 at 1:46pm

Great - yes, that looks right. It must be something to do with my workflow then.

Weird.

Thanks for the post & pic.

BTW - I don't know if it matters but the curve is actually an open polycurve with 191 segments. Rhino says Geometry: valid curve.

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Allen on February 18, 2013 at 7:13am

More info.

What I think should be a 3d curve is extracted from the imported geo as a 2d curve, which you can see from the side view attachment.

In frustration, I am posting my rhino file if anyone else cares to take a shot at this. The geo mess is the import, the desired curve is the "edge" that flows from lleft to right along the bottom or base of the mesh towards the right.

The square near the origin is a unit marker for when this goes back into the destination 3d application.

Attachments:

rhinoArrayCrvAlmost3.jpg, 55 KB
try.3dm, 33 KB

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Hammond on February 18, 2013 at 11:48am

i'm not quite sure what you're after but...

is it something like one of these?

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Allen on February 18, 2013 at 12:02pm

Jeff -

Hey, if the objects and the curve are 3D in the side/front view, then yes, that's the ticket. I cannot for the life of me get the actual curve replicated off the mesh - it goes 2D when extracting from the mesh.

The feature populates along the curve great, but, well, the source spline kinda makes that moot!