Snap together pieces 🧩

Attaching plug and sockets to pieces of nodally singular algebraic surfaces.

Exporting complete surfaces

After decomposing a surface, you can run the following python codes to export and solidify OBJ in the Python Shell. We are using a surface “octdong” in this example, so you will be running the code in your octodong directory .

import bertini_real as br

br.data.gather() # do this once after decomposing and sampling the surface.

surface = br.data.read_most_recent()

pieces = surface.separate_into_nonsingular_pieces()

This will only need to be done once per surface

For each surface you will also need several scad files. We will take a closer look at each of these files later. for now, copy these files into the current directory by running:

surface.copy_all_scad_files_here()

Next we need to write to those files with the data of each piece of the surface.

surf.write_piece_data()

for p in pieces:

  p.export_smooth()

The surf.write_piece_data function positions and orients the plug and socket and writes that data to an SCAD. This is accomplished by:

  1. Finding each singularities that have two connecting pieces

  2. for each of the connected pieces found. determine the centroid

  3. the centroid and determines a vector to place the plug and socket along

  4. write the following data to br_surf_piece_data.scad

    • piece indices

    • singularities on a piece

    • direction of the vector

    • singularity coordinates

    • and the parity of each piece(whether it gets a plug or socket)

Awesome! now we are ready to jump into openSCAD!

Viewing in openSCAD

opening the file br_surf_complete.scad in openSCAD will preview the surface! Rendering will return the following

../_images/br_surf_complete_ding_dong.png

Now lets take a quick look at the other .scad files

  • plugs_and_sockets.scad Holds the modules for plugs and sockets

  • plug_socket_params.scad controls width, length, connection length for plugs and sockets, this is used for tweaking the model

  • br_modules.scad Imports the smooth pieces to br_surf_complete

  • br_surf_piece_data.scad python automatically writes this file

  • br_surf_complete.scad brings the other 4 files together, this is the file you need to run

To do work 🚧

  1. Determine center of mass

  2. Automatically compute size of plug and sockets

  3. Transfer construction from openSCAD to Blender

Author

Caden Joergens

Version

1.0 2022/05/13