March 23, 2012 - Helix to Line

Following on from Monique's excellent idea, here is my submission to the Coffee + Grasshopper group to keep the ball rolling. I've left it 'til 1pm GMT as this is 9am EST.

Using a slider to represent transition morph a Helix into a Line. The Length of the Curve should (as far as possible) remain constant. For example if you plug the curve into a Length component it should remain 10 units long during the transition

Categories for submission should be:

Native - Only pure GH components (not even Fx unless using a VB function to good effect)

Plug-in - Highlighting a plug-in's ability to cut corners in GH

Script - Any of the custom Script components (GHA accepted if source code is supplied)

The overall "winner" will get the chance to set tomorrow's ghoffee question (unless Monique has a different opinion)

EDIT: Although tomorrow is Saturday so maybe Monday's

Good luck to all

EDIT: I should also add that anything from mathematically sound to geometric smoke and mirrors is welcome.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on March 23, 2012 at 7:42am

Here's a really simple scripting way to achieve this.

Attachments:

helix_curve.gh, 2 KB

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on March 23, 2012 at 8:10am

The important thing is for the Curve to never change length, not just displacement in X axis.

For example if you plug the curve into a Length component it should remain 10 units long during the transition

Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on March 23, 2012 at 8:23am

I see... I read it too quickly...

Permalink Reply by Brian Harms on March 23, 2012 at 12:04pm

Kind of a cheat on the length part, but fully GH native.

Attachments:

helix line.gh, 9 KB

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on March 23, 2012 at 12:17pm

I did say smoke and mirrors. :))

Permalink Reply by Michael Pryor on March 23, 2012 at 2:22pm

I have to admit, this one is driving me crazy, and I know its much simpler than I am making it out to be.

Permalink Reply by Hannes Löschke on March 24, 2012 at 5:05am

The precision really bugged me out.

Tried to sample the helix with a series first... never use a series for non-integer division. The samples just won't add up.

Attachments:

helix.gh, 6 KB

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on March 24, 2012 at 7:26am

Very elegant indeed.

As a first adjudication I'm going to be political and call it a draw with Brian's smoke and mirrors sneaking ahead as his was completely native. If Brian can think of a question for Monday and Hannes for Tuesday then it would allow the winner of Monday's to have a day to concoct something for Wednesday.

I have to cut a hedge down now so I'll try and post my solution for tomorrow (which was actually done by the same method as Brian's. Great minds think alike... or is it fools seldom differ :))

Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on March 24, 2012 at 7:56am