Planar Walls

Hello,

I'm trying to build a partition wall like the one below. The challenge I am running into is building the surface as planar if the two edge curves share a different profile. I've tried building it a couple different ways with no success on keeping the surfaces planar. Any thoughts would be really appreciated.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Michael Makris on June 10, 2014 at 3:45pm

If you're looking straight at the wall, lets call the axis from the wall to you the z axis. As long as none of the edges between panels vary in the z-axis (that is, as long as each line segment sits completely in a plane parallel to the z-plane), your panels should be planar. Note, edges between panels don't have to be in the same z-plane, but each pair of points should.

Permalink Reply by Michael Makris on June 10, 2014 at 7:21pm

Ok, so I was wrong. I threw together this definition that assembles the wall in the way you describe. The Curves I use are use are random but You can replace the curves I use with your own.

However, what I was wrong about is that the "panels" most often will not be planar unless you assemble them from the ground up. Starting with curves, as I have done (and you describe), and then assembling the panels from them will end up with panels that look planar until you start moving the lines more and more. You will see how they start to show their "saddle" shape. However, if you are trying to model something for fabrication, this model will approximately be right unless you really stretch the curves.

If you have to have exact mathematical planes, you need to start with points on the ground, then copy them upward, forming planes as you go that you know will be planar. I don't think you can start with your guide lines and be sure they will form exactly planar panels.

Attachments:

Panels1.png, 534 KB
Panels.gh, 29 KB

Permalink Reply by Tudor Cosmatu on June 11, 2014 at 1:22pm

Hello Bill,

Since i saw that Michael's example does not result in planar panels, i gave it a quick and dirty try. see attached.

Attachments:

2014-06-11_PlanarPanelsWall.gh, 20 KB

Permalink Reply by Michael Makris on June 12, 2014 at 12:13pm

Unfortunately this kind of method doesn't maintain the curve profiles that he's looking for. (Looking at the wall face on, you no longer get smooth curves.)

I think that's the problem here though; if you need absolute planes, you can't specify the z-values of the points (i.e. make them fit a curve). You've revolved the points to make sure they stay in a plane; however, this changes their z-axis locations so that they no longer appear as a curve.

Permalink Reply by Bill Allen on June 13, 2014 at 12:35pm