FlowAlongSurface Without Distortion?

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

Is there a way to make FlowAlongSurface work more like Splop? The distortion of the objects being pinched and stretched is really unwanted in some cases. I know flow uses the isocurves to layout the objects, but is there a workaround? I don’t feel like I have acccuracy with Splop, even though it achieves what I’m after.

2

Hi Eric- two possible workarounds come to mind:

  1. Flow with History on, and manipulate the shape of the base surface (e.g. ChangeDegree on the base plane to 3 by 3 and move the points to deform that surface - the Flowed objects will update and you may be able to get the result more to your liking.
  2. OrientOnSrf gives more precise control than Splop, though it does essentially the same thing. Make sure ‘Rigid’ is un-checked in the dialog.

-Pascal

3

Yes, I would try to make the base surface have a similar topology to the ring surface… maybe start with copying the ring, trimming out a section just big enough to extend past the are you want the detail, then “smash” that area to get a starting point. Then adjust as needed.

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@pascal, I’m covering a majority of the target surface with ornamental scrollwork. If I start changing the base surface, this would fix distortion in one area only to cause it in another. Is there any way FlowAlongSrf could have an option to use the same placement as OrientOnSrf or Splop?

@heath, that gives me a lot less distortion.

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Hi all! This question is so popular so i’m going to describe all the process of transferring objects onto the surface almost without any distortion. I just want to end up with this problem ones and lifetime. I’m going to use grasshopper and some plugin. Check the live broadcasting tomorrow on j-design.pro channel on youtube. It’s supposed to be in russian but I hope everything is going to be totally clear. Any case you can ask me in english in comments.

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Have a look at this video as an example: https://vimeo.com/78233784

This is one of the videos I first used for this process, rebuillding the surface helps a lot.

Andy

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@Dmitry_Medvedew, I started this post long ago and @2DCube, that is my video 1 year later :slight_smile:

I am very curious to see what Dmitry comes up with. I just watched a dozen of his videos and they were wonderful. I only wish I spoke Russian. I hope he going to show Flowing the target surface’s edges onto a flat plane in Grasshopper. That would make for a very powerful workflow when combined with his automatic FlowAlongSrf in Grasshopper youtube video.

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Haha! So it is. Brilliant :smiley:

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Thank you Eric. The idea is to collect all the knowlege about transferring objects in one video tutorial because there are too many questions from my russian students concerning this topic. Good news, you really dont’t have to learn Russian. I’m going to start translate the videos and provide courses in English next year. It’s in my planner the first line. There are a lot of things I want to talk about. I saw the video from Andy’s post and what it is said there is a core thing of tranfering but it’s not complete. There are many ways of precise transfering objects onto the curved surface I want to share. And as soon I can call myself an old school modeller back in times when there were no such cool things as FAS and Splop and even Bend nevertheless I had to deal with that problem. Now those tricks few people know but I want to combine the methods of the past with the modern ones to get the better result.

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