Displaying Knots

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

Is it possible to display knots on curves in Rhino? I seem to recall Alias showed them by default but I can’t find a setting to turn them on in Rhino. Can anybody point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

2

use the command EditPtOn is that what you are looking for? its usually not set by default to any shortcut like PointsOn which you can access via F10.

those are the two GUI icons responsible for the 2 commands

3

Thanks for the suggestion, Richard, but my understanding is that edit points are not the same as knots. A quick test seems to support this notion (I’ve marked the knots with points using knot snap, turned on edit points and they aren’t aligned).

4

Hi MisterB - currently, exising knots are marked inside the InsertKnot & RemoveKnot commands. Why do you need to see them?

-Pascal

5

what do you want with the knots? do you want to reshape curves? the knot is as far as i have understood exactly between the edit points, there is no way to switch those on if i am correct. the only why to access them is through RemoveKnot or InsertKnot

6

Thanks, Pascal, those commands allow me to see the knots, all be it temporarily. It’s quicker than using points and knot snap.

I don’t really need to see them, it’s just a quick visual way of identifying multi span curves. It isn’t difficult to use the What command.

I’ve been using some Alias training material to brush up on certain Nurbs terms and Alias shows knots, I thought perhaps Rhino could do likewise. No matter, I’ll manage.

Thanks again.

7

Thanks again, Richard. Insert or Remove Knot will suffice. Thanks again.

8

hey pascal, why is it actually not possible to switch those on even though its possible to remove or insert them?

9

Another quick way to check for evil multi-spans is by selecting the curve then the properties tab and then click on details button. This displays the degree and point count. You can quickly see if it’s multispan or not. But you can’t see where the knots are though…

blob.jpg785×658 161 KB

10

Thanks, mcvltd. That’s a handy shortcut that I don’t use often enough. Thanks for the reminder.

11

I agree that it would be good to see the knots, if you want to.

I started nurbs modelling with Alias many years ago (didn’t get very far with it but that’s another story). When I switched to Rhino, I actually liked the clean look of the curves. However, now I appreciate that the information contained within the Alias curve display is quite helpful, i.e. knots and the curve direction. None of it is essential, you can easily find this info if you need it in Rhino, but having it visually represented on screen at all times (unless you turn it off) is quite a good idea.

2 Likes
12

or you search knots by script.
optional color the singlespanCrvs

	Option Explicit

Dim colorSingleSpanCrvs:colorSingleSpanCrvs= True


Call Main()
Sub Main()
	Dim crvs
	crvs = Rhino.GetObjects("get Curves to draw knots",4)
	If Not IsArray(crvs) Then Exit Sub
	Call Rhino.EnableRedraw(False)
	Dim domain,knots
	Dim lastKnot,pti,crvi,knot
	Dim countKnots
	
	For Each crvi In crvs
		countKnots = 0
		domain = Rhino.CurveDomain(crvi)
		knots = Rhino.CurveKnots(crvi)
		lastKnot = domain(0) - 1
		For Each knot In knots
			If knot > domain(0) And knot > lastKnot And knot < domain(1) Then
				pti = Rhino.EvaluateCurve(crvi,knot)
				Call Rhino.AddPoint(pti)
				countKnots = countKnots +1
			End If
		Next
		If colorSingleSpanCrvs Then
			If countKnots = 0 Then
				Call Rhino.ObjectColor(crvi,RGB(0,255,0))
			End If
		End If
	Next
	Call Rhino.EnableRedraw(True)
End Sub

hope that helps

but i agree - a show direction and show Knots option in the Document Properties View Setting would be nice to have

1 Like
13

Thanks, Tom. I appreciate that.

Scripts have been one thing (well actually, one of many things) in Rhino I’ve never really delved into. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to do just that.

Thanks again, I’ll give it a whirl.

14

You can use CurvatureGraph to visualize knot locations. If the display density is set to 0 it shows a hair at each knot location.

1 Like
15

I had a go at that Jim and got the following -
(yellow points are added using the knot osnap feature - I seem to get hairs where there aren’t knots as well - degree3 curve)

blob.jpg800×659 78.7 KB

16

set density to 0

but generally i believe its not fully correct, if you have very few knots only it shows hair anyway
even there seem no knots.

17

Doh! Thanks Richard.
Here it is set to 0. Still got extra hairs…

blob.jpg800×659 79.3 KB

18

Yes It seems to work only for nice curves,
On curves that are not so nice it throws in extra hairs where the curvature is high,

19

yes on strong curves it shows more hair, but when you have enough knots it equals
but still i am wondering why this would not be possible to handle more intuitiv.

20

Strong?? I would think weak would be a more accurate adjective.

If you had the tools to view knots then the next thing you would want is tools to edit them.