Distance between a point and a plane?

Hello, I'm new in Grasshopper, I've searched around but I couldn't find a solution, hope someone can help me.

I want to get in Grasshopper the line perpendicular to a plane that contains a specific point outside the surface, i.e. the distance between the plane and this point. Is there a way to get that? If possible I want to get a line rather than a "numeric distance", so I could later use it as a vector.

Thank you.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by djordje on December 28, 2013 at 6:41am

Hi Andrés,

Is this what you want?

Attachments:

surface_normal.gh, 9 KB
surface_normal.3dm, 32 KB

Permalink Reply by Andrés Antolín on December 28, 2013 at 7:39am

Not exactly, that is great for calculating the perpendicular line to a surface, but now I need to finde the exact point on the surface so that this line perpendicular to the surface contains a especific point I have defined in Rhino and is not on the surface. My surface is actually a plane (flat), so the normal vectors in each point of it all have the same direction, but I need to find the one that goes through the point outside the surface.

Permalink Reply by djordje on December 28, 2013 at 7:46am

Could you please attach your files, and label the exact point you are talking about?

Permalink Reply by Andrés Antolín on December 28, 2013 at 9:53am

I want to get the line that goes from the point set in "SET Pt a" and is perpendicular to the plane created in "Pl 3Pt"

What I'm trying to do could be easily done directly in Rhino, but I'm trying to develop a definition that could be applied to any given pair of solids, that's why I want to do this in Grasshopper.

Attachments:

file.3dm, 50 KB
file.gh, 7 KB

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on December 28, 2013 at 8:16am

As far as I can tell that's exactly what Djordje's file does. It finds the closest point on a surface (flat or curved, doesn't matter) which* gives you a surface normal vector that intersects the point.

If you're interested in infinite planes instead of finite flat surfaces, then replace Surface CP with Plane CP.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

* provided the surface has no kinks in it

Permalink Reply by Andrés Antolín on December 29, 2013 at 3:42pm

Hello again, I've finally found a way to do it, I think it was easier than it looked like. I simply created a surface in the plane I had and then "surface closest point" worked perfectly. I attach the file just in case you want to check it.

Thank you djordje and David for your attention! Greetings and Happy New Year!

Attachments: