Selective Anchor points for certain forces

Hey Daniel,

I'm messing around with a bit of bending and spring forces to make a digital mock-up of a project involving bend tubes supporting a tensile fabric covering. [picture]

At the moment, I'm running two separate simulations: one for the tubes (you already saw the proto-definition for that the other day) and then another for the fabric. The reason I separated them is that I couldn't figure out if there was a away to tell the edges of the fabric mesh to be anchored to nodes in the bend tube system. Is this possible?

This is OK in my case, because while the tubes are initially flexible they will be made out a pvc/fiber/pvc tube sandwich that is then injected with resin and becomes rigid. As I have it now I assume the tubes are perfectly fixed after hardening.

I ask about combining the two simulations because I don't know exactly how rigid they will be and I expect there will be some deformation (perhaps significantly so) depending on the weight and tension in the fabric... I was hoping to have feedback between the two forces and optimize the form a bit, perhaps try to find shape families that are more self-supporting. Any ideas or comments?

Thanks,

Kris