Angle Mesure Tool

[rvr1982]

Hello

I was wondering if there's a way to mesure angles in maya.

All I could find in maya 2008 were the distance, parameter (??) and arc lenght tools.

Perhaps a script could solve my problem ?
If I remember well, there's a formula to calculate the angle between two lines, but I have tons of angles to mesure in my scene, that could help me, but would take tons of time...

Thanks for all help,

RvR

(sorry for my bad english, but frensh/german forums are usually worthless compared to highend3D ^^)

[ronviers-viers]

One possibility is to orient a locator to one side and aim it at the other.

[joojaa]

Well one is VERY easy to make. Angle is just the arcus cosinus of mag(vector) dot mag(vector), or simply angle() because its used so much.

So say you have 3 points selected with the last one being the center in this case (its not a robust script because its advice feel free to modify it)

CODE
{
  $items=ls -sl -tl 3;
  if (size($items)==3){
    float $pt1[3]=pointPosition -w $items[0];
    float $pt2[3]=pointPosition -w $items[1];
    float $pt3[3]=pointPosition -w $items[2];
    print ("angle Is: "+rad_to_deg(angle(
    <>,
    <>))+
    " degrees"
    );
  }
}

After you have run this you can jsut keep selecting points and hitting g to find out the triplets angles

[rvr1982]

Thank's to both of you ! I'll try both methods. Very interesting script btw.

Joojaa, third time you're helping me out, next time i'll have to invite you for a drink !

[joojaa]

QUOTE(rvr1982 @ 02/24/09, 04:33 AM) [snapback]301548[/snapback]
Joojaa, third time you're helping me out, next time i'll have to invite you for a drink !

Probably not worth the airplane ticket prices for me

[dzcharlie]

so if i understand correctly,

there is no direct "angle measuring" tool?

yikers...

[joojaa]

Actually there is, it just has no gui, but thisones better for the askers specific purposes.

So because in maya all is same me doing it or autdesk doing it ts still the same thing.

Anyhow for the asker even if there was it would still have been a bit over the top tedious without script. Y

[dzcharlie]

hello,

sorry for not understanding, but if it has no GUI. how do you access it? (still new to maya as you can probably tell)

thanks

[joojaa]

QUOTE(dzcharlie @ 02/24/09, 11:00 PM) [snapback]301630[/snapback]
sorry for not understanding, but if it has no GUI. how do you access it?

by script. All, or lets say 95% of mayas gui is just script. So whatever you do is call script anyway. So in a way you should forget the difference between a script i wirte and a script maya already has its all the same for maya. And it hsould be all the same to you, as it makes maya very very flexibe.

I mean i couldn't do most of my work, on any program without scripting. Basically because my days would end before i could get even the simplest things done.

The toools you need depend on what you do, and NOBODY else can tell you exactly what tool is useful. Since they cant they cant make the perfect tools for you. See parhaps you need a tool thet sens your rpreview render to webpage for customers to review at their leisure or then you need a script that calls photoshop to do some deed to you. Whatever the reason ist because time is a limited resource, if we were immortal no computers would exist.

[dzcharlie]

aye...

so you can script with maya. how about other 3d programs, can you script with them or is this something unique about maya?
is it possible to script or customize anything?

while that's really great, i find it a little frustrating that to do something basic like measure an angle, i would have to get into scripting and learning about those details.

a big mountain indeed.

thanks!

[joojaa]

QUOTE(dzcharlie @ 02/25/09, 03:59 PM) [snapback]301696[/snapback]
so you can script with maya. how about other 3d programs, can you script with them or is this something unique about maya?

Well nowdays it is maya kindof jumpstarted this. But all 3d apps had apis before thet so you could hav written com or other stuff before that.

QUOTE
is it possible to script or customize anything?

More often than not, yes. I dont really own a single program i havent figured out how to scipt. If all else fails i can allways do what you can do with a mouse by manually mining the operating sytems calls, but thats quite hardcore.

The extent of you success varies, not all software integrate as nicely as maya but still true.