"Droj" <803### [at] drojde> wrote:

> Thanks the input! It's highly appreciated.

Certainly.   Every new challenge is a valuable learning experience.

> Can you download and open the zip-file I attached in my first post?
> It's the POV script I used.
> I am not using a torus but a circle as cross section for the tube that follows
> the graph of the heart curve. And the atan2 function - Povray knows this
> function it's in math.inc - manages that the angle of the cross section is
> perpendicular to the curve of the heart curve.

I did that, and looked it over, and played a bit with graphing some of the basic
equations and changing some things around to see the effect.

> The question is why are some parts of the tube flatened as indicated in the
> image T_HeartCurve_00a1.png??

I think that if you take a circle and trace the heart with it, but it rotates
too much / too little while you're going around, you're going to have a
non-orthogonal relationship between the circle and the "spline" - and so the
nearly parallel parts end up "flat".

Try using u/2 in your PHI calc - it partially solves that issue. (hmmm)

Also, use QY (the cos) in F1, since that seems to follow the torus equations in
my analogy.   x = cos v *cos u,      y = cos v * sin u,      z = sin v
                  ^^^

I think that maybe the atan2 isn't quite doing what you want it to do / think
it's doing.  Look like Mike uses vcross to calculate the normals.  Usually
normals are done with vdot?


The relevant files are in the distribution insert menu under meshmaker.

Here's one that I have somewhere on my HDD, so you can see what he's doing.
It's all splines, but maybe you can see what you need to do with the functions
to correct the orientation.


- BW




// Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer Include File
// File: SweepSpline.inc
// For POV Version: 3.5
// Desc: Macro sweeping one spline along another
// SweepSpline Version: 3
// Date: 1-Mar-2004
// Auth: Mike Williams
// Based on an idea by Greg M. Johnson


// Requires makemesh.inc by Ingo Janssen <http://members.home.nl/seedseven/>
//
// Parameters
// Track        A spline that specifies the path along the object
//              The section of the spline between control points 0 and 1 will be
used
// Shape        A spline that describes the cross section
//              The section of the spline between control points 0 and 1 will be
used
// Waist        A spline with x coordinates that specify the radius of the
spheresweep
//              The section of the spline between control points 0 and 1 will be
used
// U            The number of vertices along the path
// V            The number of vertices around the circumpherence
// FileName     The name of the file to whitch the mesh will be written. If is
an
//              empty string (""), no file will be written. If a file name is
given,
//              the macro will first check if it already exists. If that is so,
it
//              will expect a mesh2 with the name "Surface" and try to parse the
//              existing file.

#include "makemesh.inc"

#macro FindPoint(su,sv)

     // Spline point and radius
     #local P = Track(su);
     #local W = vlength(Waist(su).x);

     // Vertex position
     // To prevent flipping, calculate from the previous DRY vector
     #local DRX = W*vnormalize(vcross(DR,DRY));
     #local DRY = W*vnormalize(vcross(DRX,DR));
     P + (Shape(sv).x)*DRX + (Shape(sv).y)*DRY;

#end


#macro SweepSpline(Track,Shape,Waist,U,V,Filename)
#if(strlen(Filename)>0)
  #if(file_exists(Filename))
    #debug concat("\n Parsing mesh2 from file: ", Filename, "\n")
    #local Build=0;
    #include Filename
     object{Surface}
  #else
    #local Build=1;
  #end
#else
  #local Build=1;
#end

#if (Build)
#local Verts = array[U*(V+1)]
#local Norms = array[U*(V+1)]
#local UV    = array[U*(V+1)]

// Calculate the Vertexes, Normals and UV arrays
#local DRY = y; // Arbitrary initial vector that X will be perpendicular to
#local uu=0;
#while (uu<U)
  #local vv=0;
  #while (vv<=V)
     // UV information
     #local su = uu/U;
     #local sv = vv/V;
     #local UV[uu*(V+1)+vv] = <su,sv>;

     // Direction the spline is pointing
     #local DR = Track(su+0.001)-Track(su-0.001);

     // Find some points
     #local P = FindPoint(su,sv);
     #local Verts[uu*(V+1)+vv] = P;

     #local Pu0=P;
     #local Pu1 = FindPoint(su+0.001,sv);
     #if (vlength(Pu1-Pu0)=0)
       #local Pu1 = Pu0;
       #local Pu0 = FindPoint(su-0.001,sv);
     #end

     #local Pv0=P;
     #local Pv1 = FindPoint(su,sv+0.001);
     #if (vlength(Pv1-Pv0)=0)
       #local Pv1 = Pv0;
       #local Pv0 = FindPoint(su,sv-0.001);
     #end

     // calculate the normal
     #local Norms[uu*(V+1)+vv] = vcross(Pu1-Pu0,Pv1-Pv0);

     #local vv=vv+1;
  #end
  #local uu=uu+1;
#end

  BuildWriteMesh2(Verts, Norms, UV, V, U-1, Filename)

#end
#end

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