I was just thinking yesterday how nice it would be if I had a function that would trace something like a helix so that I could describe a braised heat exchanger in AoI.
So for right now you just put a sphere centred on each point along the curve?
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a 'curve' (just a curved line (..for paths for animations, arrays, extrusions & c.)) which is
labelled 'neuronetrace' & is just below parent folder holding all the spheres...
tubing can also follow that 'neuronetrace'..
you can set your x, y & z starting points & the starting angle (note: Watt's, Hyperbolic Spiral
& Cochleoid can't start @ '0', I'll 'catch' this when I do dv0.1.4), so double helix is possible,
just thinking, trace one curve using a delta z, then trace a second from the end point of that first curve (or som e other appropriate point)using '-delta z'... I think that does it...
I (or someone else) can change the z set options so that z oscillates about a value (e.g: 0, -0.5,
-1, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1, 0.5, 0) over a period...
as I've made clear this is a DRAFT version (so noone go using it for biomed applications (haw, haw!)).. but I'm over the moon that such a nice application of it (& one I'd not have thought of) is mentioned by one of you (reprap) guys...
K
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I'm sure that there are a lot of uses to which special curves can be put. Creating trajectories for motion paths in AoI's animation options is currently a real pain in the neck. If that were a little more user friendly AoI could be used a lot more effectively in the design of linkages and other dynamic mechanisms.
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It would also be nice if we had a "crash" capability that could check to see if two moving parts ran into each other. That's common in many game engines.
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frankly, while I wholeheartedly support RepRap, what I can probably offer most, from the project viewpoint, is my developing scripts that make it (AoI) more of a Mech/Archi/Elec' (MAEL?) tool...
linkages is something I was thinking about, what I didn't know was that that was a 'real' want...
versus one that I just perceived (from my studio)
I'd require a (minimum of one) bouncing board...
that said, AoI is 'wondrous'.. a perfect base...
K
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Just got back from my US trip. All this about turning AoI into a CAD system is great! I especially like the wish list idea, and also that the brilliant AoI user interface shouldn't be sacrificed to make it look more like a conventional CAD system.
I have a student starting a 4-month full-time project on just this in February 2007, so (s)he (don't know the bod yet) should be able to help.
Anyway. Here's my off-the-top-of-my-head wish list (some of these may already be in there; I know - RTFM...):
1. Ability to switch on on-the-fly conversion of booleans to triangle meshes as soon as they are created, both for speed, and also to check when objects are created in case they are are non-manifold (i.e. run mesh optimize and simplfy on them too, and then Nik's Euler checker).
2. Ability to put two objects together face to face automatically (inside or outside), then boolean union or subtract them. This may involve extending one to cause it to interpenetrate/poke-out-from the other to get a clean union/subtraction.
3. A library of standard engineering shapes.
4. One-click booleans (plus auto-hide the two original parts and put them under the resulting boolean in the hierachy) when you know the operator you want to apply.
5. Ability to make measurements between surfaces (A to B is 25 mm, or whatever).
I'll think up more later...
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***linkages is something I was thinking about, what I didn't know was that that was a 'real' want...***
I'm not sure that it is... ...yet.
I do think that as soon as we start using repraps to actually design things that have moving parts, however, we're going to need enhancements to AoI that make animations easier to do. That means linkages to me as one part of several new capabilites. The "crash" capability is another.
I'm doing what I do in RepRap in order to access a cheap 3D printing system for making prototype parts and maybe even doing manufacturing on short production runs for telepresence 'bots. I've done AoI scripts for both involute profile gear design and rack and pinion gear system design. I'm using AoI currently because I'm a pretty determined character, however, and a Scots-Irishman who can get blood out of rocks insofar as looking for cheap deals.
As I see it though, if we want to really unleash design creativity on the masses and especially in kids we've got to give them the tools to actually design useful things. AoI could be the core of the software to do that if we work a bit harder at that. :-)
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BeanShell can call on any Java source code of any Java 'class' files, so if I'd the source or class files used for one of those applets, then much of the work is done...
first point second
collision is done by 'bounding box', I know a bit (a 'fair' bit) about the theory of this..
but that is the essentials of particle physics or particle systems, which is as hard as it probably looks when you see the phrase 'particle physics'!
I've been thinking about new approaches for this kind of thing & I can tell you (apart from one or two moments where I've gone: ah!... no...) I've got nowhere...
again, a two (plus) person project..
K
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I think that the wise course of action here is that someone set up a wish-list of script stuff,
I can then work on some & try drumming up one or two others who can help make 'it' happen..
I can see that there's been much progress on one front (the actual making of stuff) but one of my suspicions was that AoI requires a supplement of scripts (sort of like AutoCAD's got 'supplement' shells, one for Archi', one for Mech & so on)...
I'm the newcomer, you're the admin...
A wishlist on time saves future frustration.
K
of
Dublin, Belfast & Berlin
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***I can see that there's been much progress on one front (the actual making of stuff) but one of my suspicions was that AoI requires a supplement of scripts (sort of like AutoCAD's got 'supplement' shells, one for Archi', one for Mech & so on)... ***
One of my pet peeves with AoI is that cockeyed left-hand coordinate system that they use. I don't know what Eastman was thinking when he did that. LOL!
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***AoI (which I think is perfectly 'too basic') is a project where the MechArchiElec is not dominant.. what is dominant is the Computing (esp. Graphics)
so RepRap will face that problem.. ***
I don't see that as a problem as such. I'm not interested in either RepRap or AoI becoming a standard in the traditional MAEL market. Those guys have more baggage having to do with how they do their work than you can shake a stick at.
If we're going to pull people into designing things that work who aren't already doing that sort of thing but merely have the interest we've got to be very careful to avoid making them learn the whole MAEL way of doing things before they can do anything useful. The GUI has to be intuitive, which is most definitely NOT what MAEL practices are as they stand.
IMO, 3D Studio/AutoCAD and Maya both are overloaded with gatekeeping "ways of doing things" that do much more to exclude people from using them than inviting newbies in.
The only reason that I mentioned the left-handed coordinate system that AoI uses is that it makes coordinating what you're doing in AoI with the rest of the world a bit more difficult than it ought to be.
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I wholeheartedly agree about most commercial imp lementations of MAEL software, but I'm proposing that one can effectively 'draw off' such software ideas that one can script...
actually, I'm thinking of how any AutoCAD using corp's I've been working around have banks of scripts (either AutoLisp (kewl) or VB (eugh!))..
& of how say the Solid Editor of AoI works (is it not possible that one codes it so that it works around the 'non-manifold shape' problem...? just for MAEL users (usually it only concerns them..))
& of how a threaded lead-screw is MAEL relevant.. but not so big a deal for CompGraphics.. & while
'refraction' is 'way cool', it's not such a whoa nellie from the MAEL (esp. a Machine Modelling) POV...
I know, I know; aren't all lead-screws threaded?
So what I mean when I speak about MAEL & AoI is that it's possible that, for a newcomer looking up ways of designing a 'machine', AoI seems not as much as it is & absolutely can be/become..
hence the proposal for a wishlist..
K
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I've been doing gears and I suspect that Vik's cog script could be put to making ACME thread drive screws.
Most of the stuff that would be on my wish list wouldn't exactly be scripts but more changes in the AoI code itself, like swapping the y and z axes tags.
Another thing that would be helpful would be a way of forming a solid from one corner rather than in the exact middle of the solid, rather like you did your curves.
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just looking @ Archimedes Open CAD (Java, 2D, focussed on Architects), future plans for making AutoLisp scripts import possible, forms shapes from the corner... possibly a future collaboration.. worth giving a look anyway...
K
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I've done prelim work on point 5. (making measurements btween surfaces & c.), a library of standard engineering shapes is no 'major' problem (Fab@Home have I think a similar 'want') & on the idea of boolean see:
& of how say the Solid Editor of AoI works (is it not possible that one codes it so that it works around the 'non-manifold shape' problem...? just for MAEL users (usually it only concerns them..)) [2006-10-18 (above)]
I'm studying the source of the Solid Editor 'as you read this'.
However, during an exchange of emails w/ the folks who've made Archimedes, an idea came up (it was their idea, actually); the conversion of all those AutoLisp scripts out there for use on Archimedes (which is Java based too)..
I've been playing w/ Ruby... (the word is 'glee') & thinking how perhaps it can work as the 'translating language'.. perhaps BeanShell (or even Ruby (see JRuby)) as the target
I will probably be prototyping every piece of code using Ruby anyways.
None of this is easy, of course, but I 'get off' on it.
K
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Folks,
the following is a script I've just finished while figuring out how AoI & BeanShell work..
it's not directly relevant, perhaps, but may serve some kind of function..
it's @:
http://www.housepixels.com/aoitiki/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=76
what da ya all think?
K
I love it!
I was just thinking yesterday how nice it would be if I had a function that would trace something like a helix so that I could describe a braised heat exchanger in AoI.
So for right now you just put a sphere centred on each point along the curve?
Hi,
three out of three positive responses! woohoo!
(the other two were AoI responses)
the script traces out spheres for every point
&
a 'curve' (just a curved line (..for paths for animations, arrays, extrusions & c.)) which is
labelled 'neuronetrace' & is just below parent folder holding all the spheres...
tubing can also follow that 'neuronetrace'..
you can set your x, y & z starting points & the starting angle (note: Watt's, Hyperbolic Spiral
& Cochleoid can't start @ '0', I'll 'catch' this when I do dv0.1.4), so double helix is possible,
just thinking, trace one curve using a delta z, then trace a second from the end point of that first curve (or som e other appropriate point)using '-delta z'... I think that does it...
I (or someone else) can change the z set options so that z oscillates about a value (e.g: 0, -0.5,
-1, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1, 0.5, 0) over a period...
as I've made clear this is a DRAFT version (so noone go using it for biomed applications (haw, haw!)).. but I'm over the moon that such a nice application of it (& one I'd not have thought of) is mentioned by one of you (reprap) guys...
K
I'm sure that there are a lot of uses to which special curves can be put. Creating trajectories for motion paths in AoI's animation options is currently a real pain in the neck. If that were a little more user friendly AoI could be used a lot more effectively in the design of linkages and other dynamic mechanisms.
It would be nice if we could use AoI to be able to easily do things like you find done in Java here...
http://brockeng.com/mechanism/index.htm
...for example.
It would also be nice if we had a "crash" capability that could check to see if two moving parts ran into each other. That's common in many game engines.
P (for plaasjaapie),
frankly, while I wholeheartedly support RepRap, what I can probably offer most, from the project viewpoint, is my developing scripts that make it (AoI) more of a Mech/Archi/Elec' (MAEL?) tool...
linkages is something I was thinking about, what I didn't know was that that was a 'real' want...
versus one that I just perceived (from my studio)
I'd require a (minimum of one) bouncing board...
that said, AoI is 'wondrous'.. a perfect base...
K
Just got back from my US trip. All this about turning AoI into a CAD system is great! I especially like the wish list idea, and also that the brilliant AoI user interface shouldn't be sacrificed to make it look more like a conventional CAD system.
I have a student starting a 4-month full-time project on just this in February 2007, so (s)he (don't know the bod yet) should be able to help.
Anyway. Here's my off-the-top-of-my-head wish list (some of these may already be in there; I know - RTFM...):
1. Ability to switch on on-the-fly conversion of booleans to triangle meshes as soon as they are created, both for speed, and also to check when objects are created in case they are are non-manifold (i.e. run mesh optimize and simplfy on them too, and then Nik's Euler checker).
2. Ability to put two objects together face to face automatically (inside or outside), then boolean union or subtract them. This may involve extending one to cause it to interpenetrate/poke-out-from the other to get a clean union/subtraction.
3. A library of standard engineering shapes.
4. One-click booleans (plus auto-hide the two original parts and put them under the resulting boolean in the hierachy) when you know the operator you want to apply.
5. Ability to make measurements between surfaces (A to B is 25 mm, or whatever).
I'll think up more later...
***...the brilliant AoI user interface shouldn't be sacrificed to make it look more like a conventional CAD system.***
Hear! Hear! :-)
***linkages is something I was thinking about, what I didn't know was that that was a 'real' want...***
I'm not sure that it is... ...yet.
I do think that as soon as we start using repraps to actually design things that have moving parts, however, we're going to need enhancements to AoI that make animations easier to do. That means linkages to me as one part of several new capabilites. The "crash" capability is another.
I'm doing what I do in RepRap in order to access a cheap 3D printing system for making prototype parts and maybe even doing manufacturing on short production runs for telepresence 'bots. I've done AoI scripts for both involute profile gear design and rack and pinion gear system design. I'm using AoI currently because I'm a pretty determined character, however, and a Scots-Irishman who can get blood out of rocks insofar as looking for cheap deals.
As I see it though, if we want to really unleash design creativity on the masses and especially in kids we've got to give them the tools to actually design useful things. AoI could be the core of the software to do that if we work a bit harder at that. :-)
P,
immediate response:
second point first (or 'foirst' for a New Yorker)
BeanShell can call on any Java source code of any Java 'class' files, so if I'd the source or class files used for one of those applets, then much of the work is done...
first point second
collision is done by 'bounding box', I know a bit (a 'fair' bit) about the theory of this..
but that is the essentials of particle physics or particle systems, which is as hard as it probably looks when you see the phrase 'particle physics'!
I've been thinking about new approaches for this kind of thing & I can tell you (apart from one or two moments where I've gone: ah!... no...) I've got nowhere...
again, a two (plus) person project..
K
P,
big up the Scots-Irish contingent!
I think that the wise course of action here is that someone set up a wish-list of script stuff,
I can then work on some & try drumming up one or two others who can help make 'it' happen..
I can see that there's been much progress on one front (the actual making of stuff) but one of my suspicions was that AoI requires a supplement of scripts (sort of like AutoCAD's got 'supplement' shells, one for Archi', one for Mech & so on)...
I'm the newcomer, you're the admin...
A wishlist on time saves future frustration.
K
of
Dublin, Belfast & Berlin
***again, a two (plus) person project.. ***
I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't people over at the AoI site that might be that second, or third or fourth person already. :-)
***I can see that there's been much progress on one front (the actual making of stuff) but one of my suspicions was that AoI requires a supplement of scripts (sort of like AutoCAD's got 'supplement' shells, one for Archi', one for Mech & so on)... ***
One of my pet peeves with AoI is that cockeyed left-hand coordinate system that they use. I don't know what Eastman was thinking when he did that. LOL!
P,
A:
AoI (which I think is perfectly 'too basic') is a project where the MechArchiElec is not dominant.. what is dominant is the Computing (esp. Graphics)
so RepRap will face that problem.. AoI is perhaps developing as a Maya versus a 3D Studio / AutoCAD
which is fine, cool; Nik (T-J) liked 'traces'....
but I doubt that there'll be a big 'run' for the development of (what I'm calling) MAEL scripts..
what RepRap probly requires is that AoI develops as a AutoCAD / 3D Studio 'as well'...
on CoOrds:
Polar CoOrds'd be good.. what da ya think?
btw, think about the poor so-&-so who works off origins that are on the top lhs of the screen...
K
***AoI (which I think is perfectly 'too basic') is a project where the MechArchiElec is not dominant.. what is dominant is the Computing (esp. Graphics)
so RepRap will face that problem.. ***
I don't see that as a problem as such. I'm not interested in either RepRap or AoI becoming a standard in the traditional MAEL market. Those guys have more baggage having to do with how they do their work than you can shake a stick at.
If we're going to pull people into designing things that work who aren't already doing that sort of thing but merely have the interest we've got to be very careful to avoid making them learn the whole MAEL way of doing things before they can do anything useful. The GUI has to be intuitive, which is most definitely NOT what MAEL practices are as they stand.
IMO, 3D Studio/AutoCAD and Maya both are overloaded with gatekeeping "ways of doing things" that do much more to exclude people from using them than inviting newbies in.
The only reason that I mentioned the left-handed coordinate system that AoI uses is that it makes coordinating what you're doing in AoI with the rest of the world a bit more difficult than it ought to be.
Interesting. AoI's website seems to have completely crashed.
P,
perhaps it's the madding crowd seeking out my script 'wot did it'...
haw haw
K
P,
I wholeheartedly agree about most commercial imp lementations of MAEL software, but I'm proposing that one can effectively 'draw off' such software ideas that one can script...
actually, I'm thinking of how any AutoCAD using corp's I've been working around have banks of scripts (either AutoLisp (kewl) or VB (eugh!))..
& of how say the Solid Editor of AoI works (is it not possible that one codes it so that it works around the 'non-manifold shape' problem...? just for MAEL users (usually it only concerns them..))
& of how a threaded lead-screw is MAEL relevant.. but not so big a deal for CompGraphics.. & while
'refraction' is 'way cool', it's not such a whoa nellie from the MAEL (esp. a Machine Modelling) POV...
I know, I know; aren't all lead-screws threaded?
So what I mean when I speak about MAEL & AoI is that it's possible that, for a newcomer looking up ways of designing a 'machine', AoI seems not as much as it is & absolutely can be/become..
hence the proposal for a wishlist..
K
No problems with a wish list.
I've been doing gears and I suspect that Vik's cog script could be put to making ACME thread drive screws.
Most of the stuff that would be on my wish list wouldn't exactly be scripts but more changes in the AoI code itself, like swapping the y and z axes tags.
Another thing that would be helpful would be a way of forming a solid from one corner rather than in the exact middle of the solid, rather like you did your curves.
P & al,
just looking @ Archimedes Open CAD (Java, 2D, focussed on Architects), future plans for making AutoLisp scripts import possible, forms shapes from the corner... possibly a future collaboration.. worth giving a look anyway...
K
A,
I've done prelim work on point 5. (making measurements btween surfaces & c.), a library of standard engineering shapes is no 'major' problem (Fab@Home have I think a similar 'want') & on the idea of boolean see:
& of how say the Solid Editor of AoI works (is it not possible that one codes it so that it works around the 'non-manifold shape' problem...? just for MAEL users (usually it only concerns them..)) [2006-10-18 (above)]
I'm studying the source of the Solid Editor 'as you read this'.
However, during an exchange of emails w/ the folks who've made Archimedes, an idea came up (it was their idea, actually); the conversion of all those AutoLisp scripts out there for use on Archimedes (which is Java based too)..
I've been playing w/ Ruby... (the word is 'glee') & thinking how perhaps it can work as the 'translating language'.. perhaps BeanShell (or even Ruby (see JRuby)) as the target
I will probably be prototyping every piece of code using Ruby anyways.
None of this is easy, of course, but I 'get off' on it.
K
K - I now have a student who will be working on all this too. If you contact me (A.Bowyer@bath.ac.uk) off line I'll put you in e-mail touch with him.
Yours
Adrian