Helix on path?

Helix on path?

Hi, I was wondering if anyone can think of a way to extrude a helix on a path - like on a telephone cord or rope. I puzzled my brains, but I couldn't think of a way to do it in Cheetah. The screen shot is from Silo - to illustrate what I mean - but it's a bit of a work-around. You can't edit the guide path of the coil once you've made it, and the swept profile dosn't bank well in tight corners. Plus the coils also tend to bunch up in the corners. Ideas anyone? Thanks.

twist1.jpg
twist2.jpg
 
Hi,
have you tried the "Sweep" creator object in Cheetah3D? It should normaly do the job. And it is editable.

Bye,
Martin
 
Martin, thanks for the reply, but unless I've missed something, I don't think Sweep can do what I want. Looking at my first post again, it wasn't very clear what I meant, so I have done another diagram that hopefully explains what I mean a bit better.
twist3.jpg
 
Hi,
now I understand. And yes it is possible with Cheetah3D but it requires to write a script. There is no build in tool which does such a cord automatically. Sorry.

Todds loft script might give a good starting point for writing such a telephone cord script.

Bye,
Martin
 
nicely?

I do it for the shear challenge of it!!
you want something like this
phone.jpg

maybe you need to try something like this script

feedback is welcome
Todd

ps. file is fixed now download again
 

Attachments

  • PathedHelix.zip
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Last edited:
nicely?

I do it for the shear challenge of it!!
you want something like this
maybe you need to try something like this script

feedback is welcome
Todd

ps. file is fixed now download again

Todd,
You're really mastering Javascript, don't you ;)
Great script ! Thank you very much for sharing.
Francois
 
Wow thanks Todd! :icon_thumbup::icon_thumbup::icon_thumbup: I was really only joking about writing a script, I didn't really expect you to do it - but I'm glad you did! :D I've just tried it out, and it works really well. I hope you don't mind me asking, (some people are never satisfied... :rolleyes:) but would it possible to edit it to do double or even multiple helix, like DNA, rope etc.. The reason I ask is I'm working on a character holding Christmas tree lights, (see pic) and it would be great to do the multi spirals of cabling with. If it's to much work or you don't have the time or whatever, then don't worry, I can use the existing work-around version I did in Silo.

Big thanks again. :icon_thumbup:

squid_me_grab9.jpg
 
Todd you are unbeliveable!!!

Man I don't know what to say, I respect your knowledge the pathed helix script is really fun and very handy.:icon_thumbup: :)
 
Hi,
wow Tood you are really speedy. Great work.

I should invest all my time into the scripting environment and you and Hiroto implement the features via script into Cheetah3D.:wink:

Bye,
Martin
 
ToddWR and tg_jp should be made official C3D scripters!

Hear, hear! Amazing work you've done.

Now with something as useful as this, the question that comes to mind is: in 4.x will splines be animate-able, so that the phone cord could move with the handset?
 

Attachments

  • phone.jpg
    phone.jpg
    24.1 KB · Views: 517
And for all of you out there watching this thread,

lets rope you into using this script
rope.jpg

this new one will be put in the scripts folder
this was all that was needed for this
rope2.jpg


have fun
Todd

ps
no dangerous gene splicing when using strands set at 2
 
Todd, just thought you might like to know; I posted my model on subdivisionmodeling and people really liked the twisted wires. Thanks again. :icon_thumbup:
 
Phone Cord

I can't believe there is only one thread on this one. Looks like you folks solved it already. I was trying to do this before I saw this thread. What I came up was this:

picture-2-300x171.png


I used a warped circle spline with a sweep applied and then dropped in a helix. This gave me a more flat circle (almost an oval) to work with, which seems to be like most of the phone cords I've seen (not entirely tubular). However, I couldn't figure out how to increase the number of coils for the helix enough. That, plus height would have made this easy. Then I also realized how difficult it would be to bend the coil enough to make it look realistically used.

My next thought was that even though I found this thread and your helpful script, can this still be done without a script? Could I have created a custom spline shape and then another spline path that was windy and long, having used the same technique I did above? I'm also having problems with the phone handle.
 
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