Paul Brown wrote:
> 
> I am looking for a utility that will allow me to generate things like pipes,
> cup/mug handles etc.
> An example of the sort of thing I am looking for is Piper by Mike Weber
> (http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/8625/piper/piper.html)
> 
> This is an excellent utility which allows you to draw a path with Bsplines
> using a simple 3d editor and then allows you to "Pipe" the path. The
> resulting pipe is a raw triangle mesh. The pipe can be bent around quite
> sharp corners without the pipe cross section being "crushed" (the pipe
> radius remains fairly constant).
> 
> All this is fine but I need SMOOTH pipes without the underlying triangle
> mesh showing though. Even converting the data from "raw" "raw smoothed" did
> not help much.
> 
> All this would seem to point to using Bezier patch type objects (say  a
> cylinder type patch in Moray or Spatch) and then bending and stretching this
> into shape using rotations & translations etc.
> 
> The problem with this is it's tricky to keep the "pipe" diameter constant
> after all that bending & stretching.
> It ends up looking more like ribbon then pipe!
> 
> Any Ideas? Do I just have to "tough it out" with patch editors or has
> someone written something like Piper but for patch type cylinders?
> 
> As a newbie this is my first post, so be kind.
> (Or I might regret "piping up" :-)  )
> 
> Regards,
> Paul Brown (New POVer)

There are a couple of ways that you do this that vary from easy to difficult.

Chris Colefax offers two such methods-

  His spline.inc file which when the points that lay along the spline are
specified will handle the construction between the points. One of the most
powerful methods you may employ.

  His bend.inc file which will bend an existing cylinder- Has a penalty in
speed and bend radius.

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/1434/


  Ron Parker offers the torspline macro which is made for duty like
this and operates in a manner similar to that of Chris's macro though
has less flexibility. I would suggest you look into this one first
because it is well suited to what you are trying to do.

http://www2.fwi.com/~parkerr/traces.html


 You may also wish to take a look at this page. I'll leave the description
up to the page owner who provides examples of it's capabilities.

http://members.xoom.com/dvarrazzo/epov.htm

  Next on the list is a cool include file by Gilles Tran which is
an odd pipe making macro that can only be seen to be appreciated.
You can see an example of it in use in a recent submission by Gilles
called "Eve's first morning" posted recently in the images group and
on his home page.

http://www.mediaport.net/Artichaud/Tran/sources/gtsrcee.htm


  There is also a macro called connect by John van Sickle that allows
you to specify points along a spline and will connect them with cones
( you provide the spheres at the intersecting points). This one while
useful requires a lot of points to make smooth transitions. It is very
much like the program CTDS of old if you are familiar with that little
utility.

http://www.erols.com/vansickl/

If none of these suit your purposes then look to my links page and
explore your heart out. There is bound to be something there I missed.
Probably some of the animation utilities and actual programs sections.


-- 
Ken Tyler

See my 1000+ Povray and 3D Rendering and Raytracing Links at:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html

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