Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Tweener plugin: New version on food4Rhino




In Rhino, to tween means to generate curves that interpolate between given input curves. The word's first appearance is not entirely clear—it was used at least as far back as in Tolkien, but it is safe to think of the word as the verb form of "between". In any case, tweening is a very basic operation and a fundamental part of the designer's toolbox. However, it can quickly result in curves that intersect each other or self-intersect, even on moderately complex input curves. Crossing tween curves are often undesired for aesthetic and practical reasons.

Tweener is a Rhino and Grasshopper plugin that solves this problem. It strictly guarantees the absence of crossings and intersections whenever the input curves don't intersect. In its simplest use case, the TweenPlanCurv Grasshopper component can be used directly as a stand-in replacement for the TweenCrv component, and the command TweenCurves2 can replace TweenCurves. Moreover, Tweener allows any number of closed planar input curves—not just two or any two but not necessarily closed input curves on a given surface or brep—not just in a plane. Tweener can also generate an entire color gradient scalar field instead of finitely many curves.

Whereas control points control NURBS curves, a Tweener curve is defined by the shape of the region's boundary curves. Thus, they are drawn interactively by manipulating their boundary. This provides a different perspective on curve modeling: In fact, Tweener comes with an interactive editing environment, starting with the TweenerStart command, that allows the designer to tweak and adjust the often very generic look of force field curves to give them a more individual hand-drawn touch. All Tweener output curves are modeled simultaneously, and at the same time, Tweener guarantees to maintain the absence of crossings and intersections.


Download from food4Rhino...

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