evernote.

com

ContouRapid  tutorial

ContouRapid  -­  Rhino  Plug-­in

1.  copy  the  CountouRapid.php  plug-­in  in  Rhinoceros  plug-­in  directory

(usually  C:\Program  Files\Rhinoceros  5.0  (64-­bit)\Plug-­ins)

LocateContouRapid.rhp  file  in  Rhino  plug-­in  directory  and  install  the  Plug-­
in.

3.  Open  Rhinoceros  and  orient  the  model  to  be  contoured  so  that  the  future
section  planes  are  parallel  to  one  of  the  cartesian  planes  XY,  XZ  or  YZ.

If  you  are  contouring  for  fabrication  remember  to  use  a  solid  (not  just  a  surface
with  no  thickness)

 
4.  Type  ContouRapid  in  the  command  line  (or  create  a  custom  button  if  you
know  how  to  do  it)

First  of  all  you'll  have  to  select  the  object:

Once  your  object  is  selected  you'll  see  the  bounding  box  size  in  X,  Y  &  Z  and  the
plug-­in  will  ask  you  to  pick  a  start  and  an  end  point  for  sectioning.

NOTE:  start  and  end  point  define  the  perpendicular  direction  of  section  planes
(as  in  Rhino  Contour  command),  but  they  also  define  the  effective  start  and  end
of  sectioning!  By  default  the  plug-­in  will  ask  you  to  pick  start  and  end  point  as
points  of  the  bounding  box  (use  Point  OSnap  for  this):

For  example,  selecting  point  1  and  2  gives  this  result:

The  plug-­in  will  show  a  direction  preview  (the  span  between  the  section  is
not  the  real  one,  it  just  shows  you  which  direction  the  sections  will
go).  If  you  want  to  change  direction  just  click  the  No  button  and  choose
another  couple  of  points:
When  the  direction  is  ok  for  you  click  on  Yes  (or  Ok)  and  the  plug-­in  will  ask
you  the  contouring  parameters:

In  detail:

Span  between  sections  (material  thickness):  pretty  self-­explanatory,  in

case  you  are  sectioning  to  fabricate  by  layering  it  suggests  you  that  this
parameter  should  be  equal  to  your  material  thickness;;

number  of  curves  per  row:  sections  are  oriented  on  XY  plane.  This  is  the
number  of  sections  deployed  along  the  same  row;;
X  distance  between  sections:  distance  between  XY  oriented  sections  in  X
direction  (check  bounding  box  size);;

Y  distance  between  sections:  distance  between  XY  oriented  sections  in  Y

direction  (check  bounding  box  size);;

Text  before  section  number:  text  label  that  will  be  used  in  each  section;;

sections  layer  name:  layer  name  for  newly  created  section  curves  (if  it  doesn't
exist  it  will  be  created)

Once  the  parameters  are  set  click  Ok:

Section  curves  will  be  created  and  copies  oriented  on  the  XY  plane:
For  each  section  you  get  the  curve  on  the  actual  section  plane  (Cyan)  and  the
next  section  curve  (dark  Gray,  S._3  in  the  case  above).  The  overlay  is  useful
when  you  need  to  align  contouring  section  for  fabrication.  Dark  grey  section  are
ina  separate  layer  (same  name  that  was  given  in  the  parameters  with  the
"_next"  suffix)  so  it's  easy  to  get  rid  of  them  if  they  aren't  needed.

The  plug-­in  works  for  any  solid,  even  if  they  are  non-­convex  (i.e.  generate  more
than  one  close  curve  per  section  plane):
Happy  Contouring!

PS:  in  some  cases  it  might  be  that  some  particular  section  is  skipped,  but  that
depends  on  the  Rhino  Contour  command,  and  since  the  plug-­in  is  based  on  that
it  goes  through  the  same  potential  issues.  In  such  cases  the  only  option  is  to
build  the  missing  sections  as  surface-­surface  intersections,  using  the  CutPlanes
and  ObjectIntersection  Rhino  commands.

tutorial  by  Co-­de-­iT  -­  copyright  Co-­de-­iT  2013

Original  URL:
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s19/sh/3f1ac61c-­be45-­4943-­9c6e-­
c4af9303771a/9d3b8837f526afbabcba4cfd1f3c48c1