Hi,
yes that's doable, and I think the distance tool approach is only viable if you only care about a few distances.
For n times, you would more likely only calculate the world distance by measuring the length of the vector resulting of the substracting of both transform world locations.
I'd advise using a python script, that you could do yourself if you get a tad into it, there are a lot of references and the logic can be quite close from the Maya MEL.
The steps would be :
- beginning at a specific start frame / Set the timeline
and then a for loop with :
- get distance(s)
- store or write line directly
- proceed to next frame
two approach for writing the file :
- line by line, in a csv format ( file.writeline )
- storing all data in memory ( can be large depending on number of frame ... ) and then writing at the end
i'd advise looking at using python dictionaries, and custom data format like json ( writes to file using json.dump i think )
I know those are only concepts, and if you don't script it'll be a bit blurry,
but that's how I'd do it.
Keep in mind that the text data file formatting you choose will have to be readable easily by script on the other end.
Hope it helps,
S