How can I sort curves to offset in the same direction

Hello:

When offsetting a curve I sometimes get the opposite result of what I want. That can be easily fixed by calculating the negative value of the offset distance. However I would like to ask the community what is the geometrical reason behind this. And also ask if someone knows a way to orient a set of curve to "consistently" offset in the same direction.

Below is an example of four curves that i would like to offset in the "outside" direction. The green curves are the original and the red ones are the target result. However right now I need to use a combination of positive and negative values in order to make it work.

Also I am attaching the grasshopper file with the curves internalized in case someone wants to thinker with it.

Thank you for your time.

Diego

Attachments:

Forum offset questions.JPG, 168 KB
offset question for the forum.gh, 4 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Felipe Romero on April 22, 2013 at 10:41am

Join curves before offset it, curves list should be flattened

Permalink Reply by Diego G on April 22, 2013 at 12:50pm

Hello Felipe:

That is certainly a solution. However I would need explode them back to curves preserving their order for the next part of the definition which involves a "panneling tools" grid. Converting them back seen like a quite a complicated task.

Do you know a way to separate them again in four edge curves?

I was also curious of the underlying geometric logic of the offset curve.

Thank you for your help.

Diego

Permalink Reply by Natalia K on December 18, 2013 at 6:09am