WISH : Divide curve - Two useful options, perhaps

[Xylotica]

I want to mill the surface of a pipe following a curve (in red), but also orient the tool towards an inner curve (in white).
If I use the white curve as the "Guide", the tool is on the wrong side (Read : inside the pipe).
I had to extend the surface of the end of the pipe outward to create the green curve to use as the "Guide".
Could there be an option to consider the "Guide" curve as a "target" rather than have the tool axis go through it ?

Secondly, my base curve is a closed curve, and I would like the last frame to be the same as the first so that the tool goes all around the curve, and not stop one step before the end.
Could there be an option added for this ?

Also, I couldn't figure up the role of the "Orient" geometry, although I see it does "something".
Is there a simple drawing somewhere explaining how this "Divide curve" component works exactly ?

Thanks !

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello,

Here is how I would approach that problem (attached, using the member version of PRC as you are also using).
You can define the tool direction as a vector, and the use the vector to create a plane with the Plane Normal component. As the milling tool is symmetrical, you can rotate it around the tool axis to improve reachability. The Orient Plane component rotates planes around their Z-axis so that the are facing to the given point.

Hope that helps!
Best,
Johannes

[Xylotica]

Hello Johannes,

and thanks for your VERY quick reply.
Nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon , huh ? :)

I understand how you manage to work-around the problem, but wouldn't it be nice to use the more compact and friendly "Divide Curve" component that you made, provided that it had an option to "flip" the orientation of the tool  ?

Also, your solution does not solve the issue of not "closing the loop" : if this trajectory was supposed to cut the pipe, then it would leave a little segment uncut (if I may say so).

Here's a little video of the cutting process : https://youtu.be/Sv9cxD6xQeM

Cheers,

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Haha, have to prepare for next week's workshop and presentation at eCAADe ;)
I skipped the part with the closed curve, here's a quick fix attached. It's a basic problem of the conversation from CAD to CAM (but a good idea to integrate a function for that in the divide curve component...).
The reason why the component is working the way it is working lies in our early research into flank milling, where we used one curve to define the tooltip and one for the toolaxis, see e.g. here http://www.robotsinarchitecture.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ecaade_ddp.pdf
I'll look into integrating a switch to flip the tool axes.

Ah, and nice video! In the new PRC, the robot should be orange/black, though... Did you intentionally change something or is this how it looks for you?

Best,
Johannes

[Xylotica]

I guess I hid KUKA|prc components until I got rid of the frames which were obscuring my pipe, therefor, this is the GH preview color.
May I add that I have experienced many crashes when ,say, setting a new base curve.
I just installed the very latest version, and it hasn't crashed since.

Is there anything I should be attentive to in order to avoid crashes ?

Cheers,

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello,

The most common crash is when the Settings window is loaded and some libraries are missing (but this would then happen all the time, not just sometimes).

If you run into any more crashes please let me know and I'll try to fix it. I can't think of any occasion when changing a geometry caused Rhino to crash - if anything is corrupted it may turn one of the other component red, but usually nothing worse. But of course this doesn't mean that it's not possible, so keep me updated. I can then also get in touch with McNeal if it's not directly PRC-related.

Best,
Johannes