Create the spine curve for the spiral curve.
Minimum radius for the spine curve without the cable pipe self-intersecting is
(Spiral pitch * Spiral radius) / (Spiral pitch - pipe diameter) Note: this forumla is not exact and the radius of the spine to avoid self-intersections given by the formula is slightly too small. The error increases the spiral pitch / spiral radius radius increases.
Spiral command with AroundCurve option using the spine curve.
nice, i usually do that visually but anything that shortens the manual logistics is welcome, the maths seems pretty simple, i wonder what it would take to implement that into the pipe command, to have a button which says max, probably futile to ask for since McNeel is too busy coping with the bare minimum at some parts… (ok that is not going to be another rant), i think mcneel should have just hired you long ago, you are retired i assume? plenty of time? i am not sure if you can code but i know you are good at maths in specific geometric/surface mathematics.
The formula is not exact and limited to the specific case a piping a constant pitch spiral curve, so I don’t know what would be implemented in the pipe command.
“Retired” from earning a salary but keep busy with various projects. I occasionally have time for to work on geometry problems which arise on the Rhino forum. I haven’t coded since the mid-1970’s through the 1980’s when I wrote a lot of Fortran code of numerical methods for aerodynamic analysis including surface geomety. I intend to learn how to code in the modern sense but it has not made it to the top of the priority list yet.
