I have a face on a mesh and I want to create a cylinder where the faces around would perfectly fit on this given face, not taking in account the height of the cylinder.
I know the number of "vertices" (8). I have the size of the face I want to stick the cylinder on (0.399833).
How can I do that?
EDIT : Here's an image. I need to merge the two faces.
OK, I assume you need the box to stay the same size and want an octagon that has the right size or else Bastian's answer would be best. I also assume that you want a really clean result because one could simply scale around the cursor (with the cursor sitting on a vertex of the box and the box snapped to the box using the magnet), getting it roughly right and then zoom all the way in to do the fine adjustment.
I tried to use snapping while scaling it but somehow Blender steadily refuses to bend to my will. So I use a more predictable approach.
I set the magnet to vertex and closest. Then I go into the editmode of the box, select the right face and duplicate it. I rotate the face by 45 degrees (R45Return) and then move it holding ctrl so the magnet snaps it to the edge of the box. It's sometimes easier to roughly position the face first without snapping so that Blender gets which verts are supposed to be closest. I repeat to snap rotated faces until I have the octagon.
After that I hit remove doubles and fill the edgeloops and delete the inside face so the mesh stays manifold. I also select all verts and hit ctrl-N to recalc the normals
An array modifier would of course work, too.
Here is a function that creates a polygon based on the number of edges and length of one edge.
Based on this by @float: Possible to add a plane using vertices via Python?
import bpy
import math
from math import radians
# thanks to "float"
# https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/67517/possible-to-add-a-plane-using-vertices-via-python
def create_segmented_loop_by_edge_length(objname, px, py, pz, edge_length, number_of_segments ):
# Define arrays for holding data
myvertex = []
edges = []
# Create all Vertices
segment_length_angle = 2*math.pi / number_of_segments
#starting pt
mypoint = [(0.0, 0.0, 0.0)]
myvertex.extend(mypoint)
for i in range(1,number_of_segments+1):
angle = (2-i) * segment_length_angle
dx = (edge_length * math.cos(angle) )
dy = (edge_length * math.sin(angle) )
mypoint = [( mypoint[0][0] + dx, mypoint[0][1] + dy, 0.0 )]
myvertex.extend(mypoint)
edge = [( i-1, i )]
edges.extend(edge)
mymesh = bpy.data.meshes.new(objname)
myobject = bpy.data.objects.new(objname, mymesh)
bpy.context.scene.objects.link(myobject)
# Generate mesh data
mymesh.from_pydata(myvertex, edges, [])
# Set Location
myobject.location.x = px
myobject.location.y = py
myobject.location.z = pz
return myobject
#################################################
#Example:
curloc = bpy.context.scene.cursor_location
create_segmented_loop_by_edge_length("mysegmentedcircle", curloc[0], curloc[1], 0, 1.0,8)
I stumbled upon the right answer and it doesn't really fit into my old one, so I think a separate try is more useful:
Create your two objects, rotate the cylinder 22.5 degrees if necessary, then switch on snapping, set it to Vertex and Active. Snapping to the active vertex is what makes it controllable.
Go into editmode of the cylinder. SHIFTRMB the upper left vertex to make it the active (white) one. That might be easier if you rotate the view so the verts don't overlap. Now move it to the cube until it snaps and confirm.
SHIFTS Cursor to Active. Set the pivot point to '3D Cursor'.
Keep all verts selected, but now make the bottom left the active one.
Scale around the cursor until it snaps (keep the mouse close to the target corner of the cube), then confirm.
And now they should be exactly the same size. Return to object mode, select the lesser of them, then shift select the one that's supposed to keep the object origin and join them with CtrlJ.
Remove doubles, then remove the trapped face and you have joind them. Maybe recalculate normals is needed, too.
Bmesh edit mode
In edit mode, Select the quad you wish to make a cylinder edge segment and run script. Change sides = 8 to amount of sides needed. The script dupes the active face, and uses shortest end to make cylinder sides and spins around the axis made by the longest face with center calculated using half angle tangent formula.
Removes the inner face. Doesn't cap the ends.
import bpy
import bmesh
from math import radians, tan
from mathutils import Matrix
sides = 8
angle = radians(360 / sides)
halfangle = angle / 2
context = bpy.context
ob = context.edit_object
me = ob.data
bm = bmesh.from_edit_mesh(me)
f = bm.faces.active
edges = sorted(f.edges,
key=lambda e: e.calc_length())
side = edges[0].calc_length()
le = edges[-1]
diameter = side / (2 * tan(halfangle))
axis = (le.verts[1].co - le.verts[0].co).normalized()
center = f.calc_center_median() + diameter * f.normal
dupe = bmesh.ops.duplicate(bm, geom=[f])
geom = [f for f in dupe["geom"] if isinstance(f, bmesh.types.BMFace)]
[f.normal_flip() for f in geom]
spin = bmesh.ops.spin(bm,
geom=geom,
cent=center,
axis=axis,
angle=(sides - 1) * angle,
#angle=radians(360),
steps=sides - 1,
use_duplicate=True)
bm.faces.remove(f)
bm.faces.remove(geom[0])
bmesh.ops.remove_doubles(bm,
verts = bm.verts,
dist = 0.00001,
)
bmesh.update_edit_mesh(me)
Result of sample run, with sides = 8
If you know the circunference you can have blender calculate the radius.
The formula is simple:
r = C / (pi x 2)
For example for a cylinder that is 20 cm in diameter, just type:
20cm/(2*pi) as radius
My solution would be to create the cylinder first and then extrude one of the faces if I understand your question correctly.
