Moving objects to flow along any curved surface

What I'm looking for is to automatically move the lines of strands up to the surface so that they hang from the surface. I would like a g/hopper definition to do this, so that I can try out different curved surfaces for the design. As you can see from the image attached, I have previously done this manually with a slightly different curve to the one shown in the file. It would also be good to be able to know how I can randomly rotate the objects before this stage. As you can see from the file, I have already done this, but it would be good to know for future reference.

Note, in the Rhino File I have had to delete quite a few lengths of strands to reduce to file size to upload, but essentially there will be enough strands covering the whole surface in a 40 x 40mm grid (from the centre point of each strand. Hope you can understand what I want to achieve.

Attachments:

along curve for G.H.3dm, 52.1 MB
Sketch.jpg, 895 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on February 11, 2011 at 4:43am

Moving an object from one point to another is not complicated you just need to know the vector. The problem I see with you sketch is that moving so many objects to so many points is going to be very computer hungry.

How did you create the pendants, was it with a GH definition? If so how did it cope with the quantity?

Any way, the way I would approach this would be:

1) To create your pendant at the origin. i.e. the point that the pendant hangs from is 0,0,0.

2) Then generate the points on the target surface by dividing it up.

3) Move your single pendant to each target point by supplying the point on the surface to the move vector. (this is why the origin is important)

4) Once moved you can then add an element of randomness to rotate the pendant slightly so they are not all uniform.

This would work for any number of items but would be restricted by you computer resources. If it crashes with the desired number you may need to split it up into manageable chunks before baking.

I will try and rescue the example I was putting together, when my machine recovers. Its a Dual Quad Core Xeon to put it into perspective about computer hungry resources.

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