[Closed] RAM-problem with function 'ClosestPointOnSurf'

Hello everybody,

I am struggling for nearly two weeks now finding a solution for my problem (i must admit i am pretty new to MAXscript). It would be great if anyone could give me a hand here! In essence it concerns finding the closest distance between a point and a surface in a workable way for my situation. Let me explain in short what i want to achieve:

I have 256 fixed Points and one moving Object. The Points are the pivot-points of 256 simple Boxes. The Object is a Teapot in my example. The teapot has about 1K to 5K faces.
What i want is that the Boxes (which are normally invisible) become slowly visible when the Teapot comes near enough to one of them. I solved this by loading the ‘ClosestPointOnSurf’ function at startup of 3dsMax, and basically putting a script in the visibility-track of each of the 256 Boxes. The script goes like this:

Box = $Box01
closest = closestPointOnSurf $Teapot Box.pos
dis = distance Box.pos closest

if (dis < 2.0 )
then
visibility = 1
else
(
if (dis > 4.0)
then
visibility = 0
else
visibility = 2-dis*0.5
)

The script works; the boxes become visible between distance 4 to 2. So that is one. But the problem is that fairly quickly the amounts of RAM needed builds up and goes through the roof. So the most important question i have is this: Can i tweak the script in a way that the used RAM is emptied (or a cache is emptied or something similar)? It does not need to happen in real time; i mean i will render the results. This means that the RAM could per instance be emptied after each rendered frame. I am just thinking out loud here. Other solutions are also welcome of course!
Anyone?

P.S. I have read the different threads on the subject and tried the different techniques. Right now i just wonder if i can make the latter technique work somehow.

Thank you!

For the people that doesn’t know what the function ‘ClosestPointOnSurf’ is; it makes use of MeshProjIntersect() and goes like this:

fn closestPointOnSurf surf refPos = (
mpi = MeshProjIntersect()
mpi.setNode surf
mpi.build()

mpi.closestFace refPos doubleSided:true

closestPoint = mpi.getHitPos()

mpi.Free()
return closestPoint
)

Thank you!