halfcoupler Posted September 29, 2019 Share Posted September 29, 2019 (edited) Hello everyone, connecting two pipes with a third one is quite simply done in real world,- but its seems a big challenge to do this in Vectorworks.( for me... 😕 ) wondering if anyone out here has a soloution for this:  - two pipes somewhere in space ( blue and black here ) - the red one has to be clamped with twistable couplers to the others - the positon of the two green couplers along the blue and black pipe is fixed, but they can be twisted around the axis of the pipes.    I'm looking for a workflow to find the correct position and orientation of the red pipe and the couplers.  What I have so far: - create Working Plane 1 between the axis of the red pipe and the connection line between the desired position of the two green couplers - create Working Plane 2 between the axis of the black pipe and the connection line between the desired position of the two green couplers - place the couplers in the origin of the Working Planes and rotate them in the desired direction.  Problem: The Orientation of the couplers is NOT the Z'-Axis of the working planes ( Only approximately ). It seems to be something like a perpendiculary line to the tangential connection between two circles with the distance of the twistable couplers around the pipes. But how to find that ?  Or am I completely wrong and there is a simple soloution for this by using specific 3D tools ?      Edited September 29, 2019 by halfcouple Quote Link to comment
halfcoupler Posted September 30, 2019 Author Share Posted September 30, 2019 Just found out that the problem is not explicit, since there are 4 ways to connect the pipe. The four matching points can be found by drawing a circle around the black and the blue pipe with the radius of the twisted couple and a sphere with the diameter of the connection line...  Can anyone out there tell me how to find intersecting points between a circle ( 3D Polygon ) and a sphere ( 3D Object ) ??? There seems to be no snapping option for this ... Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted September 30, 2019 Share Posted September 30, 2019 6 hours ago, halfcouple said: Can anyone out there tell me how to find intersecting points between a circle ( 3D Polygon ) and a sphere ( 3D Object ) ??? There seems to be no snapping option for this ...  The easiest solution is to convert copies of both objects to NURBS and use the Analysis Tool.  Click on both NURBS objects with the Analysis Tool and it will generate 3d loci where they intersect.  Kevin  3 Quote Link to comment
halfcoupler Posted October 1, 2019 Author Share Posted October 1, 2019 (edited) Hi Kevin, thanks much for the reply. The Analysis Tool seems to be one of the hidden treasures of Vectorworks 😀 Meanwhile I was successful with simple solid substraction. Substracting the sphere from the two circles ( converted as polygons ) results in two "halfmoons". The edges of these halfmoons are the searched points. The orientation of the twisted clamps after finding these points is a question of skilled placement of working planes. I wonder If all this can be put into a Marionette Script. ... a task for long winter evenings after I have retired... 🙃 Edited October 1, 2019 by halfcouple 1 Quote Link to comment
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