Re-fit curves a given distance from other curves

I'm hoping someone can suggest a way to solve a small problem.

I have some curves, not quite parallel to each other, and I want to adjust the curves so that the distance between pairs of them is a specified constant. (BTW, I realize that there may be no perfect solution to this in many cases. But I'm happy with a close approximation.)

Enclosed is the current scheme, based on CrvCP, that works well UNLESS the curves are so twisted that CrvCP finds a closest point on a different "section" of the curve. (Shown in the example: the green curve passes too close to the red curve in one area, throwing the whole thing off).

I'm trying to find a reasonably elegant way to solve this problem, and beating my head against the proverbial wall. It seems that doing this operation on successive sections of the curves is a good approach, but I can't quite conceive how to do that. Can anyone suggest a direction to take? I'm hoping there's an approach to this problem I haven't noticed yet...

Thanks for any insights,

Dave Johnson

Attachments:

3RailLoft.3dm, 135 KB
RailFit.gh, 8 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Yoann Mescam (Systemiq) on February 8, 2012 at 3:12pm

Doing this gives better results with your example, but will probably cause problems with other cases.

Permalink Reply by Dave Johnson on February 8, 2012 at 5:48pm

Hmm, interesting. This neatly sidesteps the problem, all right, but my initial reaction was that it will get progessively less accurate along the length of the curve. However, since the curves in my problem set are all closed, maybe this will work well. I'll experiment, thanks for the nudge!

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