ICE Topology and parametric equations

[Daniel Brassard]

Pretzel

Using the above technique and ICETree, I tested another implicit formula taken from Paul Bourke Website.

The implicit equation for the pretzel is:

(x^2 * (1-x^2) - y^2)^2 + z^2 = 0.01

Using the formula, I created the ICE tree below and made it into a compound. I then connected the compound like the previous sphere implementation.

Note that I moved the right side of the equation to the left side for convenience.

[Daniel Brassard]

And, here is the point cloud and emPolygonizer results. Pretty good for a proof of concept. A lot of possibilities, the door is wide open.

Cheers!

Dan

[TwinSnakes007]

Very nice Daniel! Implicit surfaces in SI. Who knew!?

[Daniel Brassard]

Implicit ICE Tree improvement

After further testing, and multiple crashes, I found that using the IF node did not work because I was keeping the entire array and not discarting any points, in fact I was compacting the points that did not meet the IF condition to location 0,0,0.

So I modified the ICETree as follows and tested it with a Cosine function. It worked with better results at high numbers of points, and I discard the points that don't meet the condition reducing the size of the point cloud array. Unfortunately, my low spec machine cannot polygonise the shape due to lack of memory. I will leave that to those adventurers with higher spec machines.

Cheers!

Dan

[Daniel Brassard]

And for comparaison, here is the upgraded ICETree of the Pretzel. Much faster to polygonize!

[ActionArt]

Daniel, are you still going on this? I kind of missed seeing it lately ;)

I hope you still plan to package those fine compounds someday...

[Daniel Brassard]

Hi ActionArt,

Yes, I am still going with it albeit a bit slow right now due to heavy workload at work, tax time and expansion of the studio taking precedence.

What I can do is package the first 50 topos and post in the compound download area. This way it would give the readers who followed the thread so far all the compounds needed to experiment with and then some. Just in time for 2013 launch I guess!

I'll see what i can do tonight.

Dan

[Maximus]

Hey Daniel, kinda missing your lessons too!
Meaningwhile i found myself reading about an amazing work from a poland artist from time ago, you probably saw it, i was wondering how hard would be to produce in ICE this kind of models based on fibonacci sequence and phyllotaxis.
Here is the link with the "making of" if you want to take a look

http://ptakun.tmdag.com/eco_system/make ... en_htm.htm

in particular i'm interested in this kind of images




I was thinkin some modulo could have its uses here, but i'm not that expert, so i would love to hear your opinion on how to achieve such modeling!
Looking further for your compounds and thanks again for the amazing work you've done and shared with the community.

Max

[Daniel Brassard]

Hi Maximus,

Interesting experiment. Definitively possible using Chris_TC work on L System, Mossman "Emit from Polygon", Chris Marshall ICE Tree system and Milan Vasek "Scatter Tool" compounds.

I do have a Fibonacci compound but it max out at 10 iterations (I'll have to code that node one day). I also have various little constant nodes, including the golden ratio. I'll post that as well with the 50 topo nodes.

Maybe we could put our heads together in a little community project and try to figure out how to do this experiment in ICE!

[ActionArt]

Yes, I am still going with it albeit a bit slow right now due to heavy workload at work, tax time and expansion of the studio taking precedence.

I understand that! The same reason for me not participating as much as I wanted to.

What I can do is package the first 50 topos and post in the compound download area. This way it would give the readers who followed the thread so far all the compounds needed to experiment with and then some. Just in time for 2013 launch I guess!

That would be just awesome!!! Thanks again for all this interesting work.

[Chris_TC]

This is quite impressive. It should be very much doable in ICE, but the author doesn't go into a lot of detail, particularly about how he made the plant shapes.
I'm low on time these days, but if something is being put together I'll try to help.

[Tekano]

I image they will be built with some kind of L-System in houdini and the answer would most probably be somewhere in here http://algorithmicbotany.org/ also, isn't treegen an L-system generator? and there has been several other L system variants in XSI before.

[Daniel Brassard]

I forgot to mention Fabricio Chamon ICETree compound.

http://iceduous.blogspot.ca/

[Daniel Brassard]

I have uploaded the various compounds. The various compounds (so far) can be downloaded from the ICE Compound area at:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2269

In time for 2013 release,

Cheers!

Dan