Now Here is the Bridge turned into the ‘wafer’ I wanted it to be - but not yet a true 3D solid.
Next step is to map the coil lobes to the surface, flowing along the ellipsoid surface and then up, over and down the Bridge.
Well, getting the ribbons to flow over the bridge is not as straightforward as I had hoped:
In the attached Rhino model I have the Bridge and the ellipsoid as separate surfaces - obviously they need to be joined in the proper way for the ribbons to flow over the bridge. A simple Join doesn’t work. When I do Intersect the Bridge and ellipsoid intersect ok except for the on-ramp edge between the Bridge and the ellipsoid, which does not intersect. The walls of the Bridge and the off-ramp edge do intersect with the ellipsoid. The ellipsoid has had a cutout in it that matches the Bridge footprint so the ellipsoid surface does not exist underneath the Bridge, but the curvature of the bottom surface of the Bridge does match that of the ellipsoid.
What is the correct way to bond these two surfaces together so their math is uniform and FlowAlongSrf can then flow the ribbons up over the Bridge? Also - what causes the glitches in the ribbon curvatures where I marked them in the screenshot? I suspect something in the UV directions doesn’t match, but I’ve tried swapping those in the ribbons, base surface and ellipsoid, and I can get the glitches to resolve, but at the expense of the ribbons flowing perpendicular to the Bridge on and off ramps instead of approaching in line with the ramps.
Butterfly_Coil_Rhino_Model_4.zip (8.7 MB)
I have run into enough problems with the way I am trying to map the coil lobes and build and integrate the Bridge into the ellipsoid surface that I have decided to approach this from a different direction - I plan to use Grasshopper and SurfaceMorph to give me greater control over the process. This butterfly coil has to be precise and openEMS is going to be pushing back on me needlessly unless I get this really correct in Rhino. I may post more info and questions here - if that is permitted - as this subject has gotten pretty lengthy - but it also has gotten a lot of views. Jeremy, please advise on whether it will be ok / advisable for me to continue this thread here.
Hi William,
Yes, by all means continue this thread. You’ll find much longer ones on this Discourse!
It is always interesting to see how projects progress - all too often one makes a contribution and hears no more.
Regards
Jeremy
I really want to show my appreciation for all the help I have received, and if this thread can help someone else - that’d make me really happy! I’m off to Grasshopper, setting up my environment and I will report back here tomorrow.
Here are my latest assets for Grasshopper, Rhino and Python - I have been able to generate the perfect bridge overpass without any hand-intervention, using the Rhino/Grasshopper engine entirely. This is not done yet, of course - I still need to turn this into a full bridge 3D ‘hump’ on the ellipsoid surface, map the ribbons, and extrude them to be true 3D conductors. But I wanted to share this in case anyone else can benefit from the work I’ve done, and I owe Jeremy A LOT! I have to say that I am truly impressed by the power, precision and flexibility of Rhino 8 & Grasshopper. This is an AMAZING set of tools.
Py3_script_2.py (6.9 KB)
Butterfly_Coil_Rhino.zip (8.6 MB)
Butterfly_Coil_Grasshopper.gh (24.1 KB)