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Author Topic: telephone poles  (Read 5342 times)

mikegentile

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telephone poles
« on: May 20, 2014, 11:30:12 PM »
hi everyone
i'm looking to make some telephone poles and wires like the tutorial, but i need them to be in exact spots based on a google earth image. is there a way to do that?
maybe by placing a pole only at each vertex of the spline?
thanks for any help!
-mike

Paul Roberts

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Re: telephone poles
« Reply #1 on: May 21, 2014, 08:55:12 AM »
Hi Mike,

I think your suggestions of putting a telephone post on each vertex is the best solution in this scenario. The tutorial file would need a couple of adjustments to make this work.
  • Detach the posts from the evenly input
  • Wire the telephone pole to the Corner input and leave the line segment in Default
  • Set bevel mode to None
  • Using Bezier vertices gives the best connection between cable and pole

I've attached the tutorial file for you to have a look at. If you have any further questions, please let me know.



« Last Edit: May 21, 2014, 10:41:54 AM by Paul Roberts »
Paul Roberts
iToo Software

mikegentile

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Re: telephone poles
« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2014, 02:30:53 AM »
thanks soo much!
i did notice that the lines ere bending around the corners. i've changed the spline a bit on the attached file.
how can i fix the corners?

Paul Roberts

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Re: telephone poles
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2014, 11:15:21 AM »
Hi Mike,

Happy to help out. 90 degree corners are tricky because each cable would then need to be scaled independently of one another to meet the rotated poles (marked in red).



To fix this add each cable as a separate segment. In the example attached, I've kept the center attached to the original generator and created a new generator for the outside cables, using Mirror and Y Offset to position them.



The other issue is that to maintain the same spacing between the cables the cross bars on the posts need to be wider for the smaller angles. To resolve this you can use a conditional operator to swap the post for a larger one when the angle falls below a certain threshold.



I hope that helps, please let me know if you have further questions.

Paul
« Last Edit: May 29, 2014, 05:05:36 PM by Paul Roberts »
Paul Roberts
iToo Software