If I have an editable poly, and I want to figure out which edge on that editable poly comes closest to a point in space, what do I need to do? Since an edge is basically a line segment I can’t just check the line, and because concavity may exist, I can’t just find the edge connecting the 2 closest vertices (they may not share an edge).
I can’t just use the midpoints of the edges either… if a long line comes the closest to intersecting the point, but the other end is far away, it won’t work.
The problem might look easier tomorrow… it’s been a long day and I’m frazzled. But any suggestons anyone has would be appreciated!
Hi Kevin, as first chance I’d say:
set starting minimum distance equal to a very big value i.e. 1e9
for every edge in Editable poly do
get point-line distance
if the distance is minor than current minimum distance then
get point-line projection
if projection point is included in edge segment then
store the current edge index as closest and its distance as minimum
You may want to run a pre-loop where you store every Editable Poly vertex position in a Point3 Array to avoid querying it twice or more because for each vertex there are at least two edges. Using polyOp.getEdgeVerts should be faster than polyOp.getVertsUsingEdge, but I’m not completely sure.
You can find needed functions on IllusionCatalyst website, in MaxScript page.
- Enrico