This is my first post....I've been working on a macro that makes a gear
using isosurface to define the teeth.  There are 14 parameters all
together.  In the first image, each row takes one parameter and varys it
across the row.  The second image is two gears with opposite angles for the
helical cut gear teeth and two simple lights.

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/rbudge/pics/gears/gearsbig.jpg
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/rbudge/pics/gears/bluegreen.jpg

Attached is a medium size version of the first image.

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> Attached is a medium size version of the first image.

except that it didn't attach the file....lets try again

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Attachments:
Download 'gearsmed.jpg' (79 KB)

Preview of image 'gearsmed.jpg'

> This is my first post....I've been working on a macro that makes a gear
> using isosurface to define the teeth.  There are 14 parameters all
> together.  In the first image, each row takes one parameter and varys it
> across the row.  The second image is two gears with opposite angles for the
> helical cut gear teeth and two simple lights.
> 
> http://filebox.vt.edu/users/rbudge/pics/gears/gearsbig.jpg
> http://filebox.vt.edu/users/rbudge/pics/gears/bluegreen.jpg
> 

Impressive!

Can you post the source?

Regards,

-- 
Laurent ARTAUD (lau### [at] freefr)

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"laurent.artaud[AT]free.fr" <"laurent.artaud[AT]free.fr"> wrote:
> Impressive!
>
> Can you post the source?
>

Thanks!

I would post the source, but I'm still trying to track down a little
bug....Those images were made with a previous version where each gear
needed 3 isosurfaces unioned together (which was a fantastic improvement
over the first working code I had where it called one isosurface per gear
tooth).  With the old version, everything worked great, but I wanted to get
it down to one continuous isosurface for the entire gear.  It works great
for any gear with an even number of teeth, but for odds, there is a tiny
gap that needs to be fixed.  I would have easily gotten that done today,
but the beta version expired and they haven't released the new one yet.

I guess I could still post the source, but trust me, you don't want to see
it until I get some documentation in there....its really ugly looking

( mod(atan2(y,x)+( (twist>0)*(z*twist) + (twist<0)*(abs(twist)*(1-z)) +
pi*(1+mod(freq,2)*pi/freq)*(y<0) ),2*pi/freq) > flat           ) *
( mod(atan2(y,x)+( (twist>0)*(z*twist) + (twist<0)*(abs(twist)*(1-z)) +
pi*(1+mod(freq,2)*pi/freq)*(y<0) ),2*pi/freq) < pi/freq        ) *
( (mod(atan2(y,x)+( (twist>0)*(z*twist) + (twist<0)*(abs(twist)*(1-z)) +
pi*(1+mod(freq,2)*pi/freq)*(y<0) ),2*pi/freq)-flat)/((pi/freq)-flat)*depth
) +

See what I'm saying? :)  And that's just one quarter of the isosurface
function.  Actually, it looks alot better in the povray edit window, but it
still could use explanations of what each little part does, not to mention
variable names.

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> 
> I guess I could still post the source, but trust me, you don't want to see
> it until I get some documentation in there....its really ugly looking
> 
> ( mod(atan2(y,x)+( (twist>0)*(z*twist) + (twist<0)*(abs(twist)*(1-z)) +
> pi*(1+mod(freq,2)*pi/freq)*(y<0) ),2*pi/freq) > flat           ) *
> ( mod(atan2(y,x)+( (twist>0)*(z*twist) + (twist<0)*(abs(twist)*(1-z)) +
> pi*(1+mod(freq,2)*pi/freq)*(y<0) ),2*pi/freq) < pi/freq        ) *
> ( (mod(atan2(y,x)+( (twist>0)*(z*twist) + (twist<0)*(abs(twist)*(1-z)) +
> pi*(1+mod(freq,2)*pi/freq)*(y<0) ),2*pi/freq)-flat)/((pi/freq)-flat)*depth
> ) +
> 
> See what I'm saying? :)

(shudder) Yeah! I see...

>  And that's just one quarter of the isosurface
> function.  Actually, it looks alot better in the povray edit window, but it
> still could use explanations of what each little part does, not to mention
> variable names.
> 

That would help a lot. I'm waiting for it.

Regards,

-- 
Laurent ARTAUD (lau### [at] freefr)

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Budgery wrote:
> This is my first post....

Nice! It's just ... you need to make the gears more round ... more
spherical, and standing on a checkered floor.. Not bad for a first try
though.

Seriously, they are nice. What's the render-time?

(The attachment couldn't be decoded with OE6)

Kind Regards,
Hugo

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> Nice! It's just ... you need to make the gears more round ... more
> spherical, and standing on a checkered floor.. Not bad for a first try
> though.

Yeah, I never though of putting a slope with repsect to z on the gear (with
respect to x, y the gears are already perfectly cylindrical thanks to
isosurface)....it would be really easy to get it to conform to any one
pattern, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to make that slope a
parameter....that is what you mean, right, like if the gears were more like
toruses (tori?) or conical in shape?  Conical I could make into a parameter
easy greasy.

> Seriously, they are nice. What's the render-time?

Like I mentioned before, both of those images were created using an old
version, each gear requiring 3 isosurfaces with some overlap.  The
bluegreen took about 10 minutes, I think, p4 2.8gHz 512 mb, the big gear
grid maybe took 20 minutes?

I would imagine once I get the new povray beta installed, I can reduce the
render time even more seeing as how the new function would only ever call
one isosurface per gear.

Thanks for the suggestions, keep them coming! :)

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Budgery wrote:

> This is my first post....I've been working on a macro that makes a gear
> using isosurface to define the teeth.  There are 14 parameters all
> together.  In the first image, each row takes one parameter and varys it
> across the row.  The second image is two gears with opposite angles for the
> helical cut gear teeth and two simple lights.
> 
> http://filebox.vt.edu/users/rbudge/pics/gears/gearsbig.jpg
> http://filebox.vt.edu/users/rbudge/pics/gears/bluegreen.jpg
> 
> Attached is a medium size version of the first image.
> 

Cool!!!

--
Dan P
http://<broken link>

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> > you need to make the gears more round ... more
> > spherical, and standing on a checkered floor.. Not bad for a
> > first try though.
>
> Yeah, I never though of putting a slope with repsect to z on the gear
> (with respect to x, y the gears are already perfectly cylindrical thanks
> to isosurface)....it would be really easy to get it to conform to any one
> pattern, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to make that slope a
> parameter....that is what you mean, right, like if the gears were more
like
> toruses (tori?) or conical in shape?

I better confess I was playing a joke with you. We have a certain tradition
here that "first posts" should be some kind of reflective sphere standing on
a checkered floor.  :o)

But the idea of a torus-like gear isn't bad!

Best Regards,
Hugo

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> I better confess I was playing a joke with you. We have a certain tradition
> here that "first posts" should be some kind of reflective sphere standing on
> a checkered floor.  :o)
>
> But the idea of a torus-like gear isn't bad!
>
> Best Regards,
> Hugo


Hehehe.  Yeah, something didn't seem quite right about that, but being new
here, I didn't want to step on anyone's toes.  For all I knew, maybe you
just really liked spheres and checker floors...I'll tell you what, just for
you, once they release the new beta, I'm going to make a checker textured
gear sitting on a giant sphere!  How insane is that!? Wooo :)

Budge

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