Tool Palettes Locators > Curve curvature > Options

Locators > Curve curvature

Adds a locator that shows the curvature or radius comb of a curve.

See Curvature

See Create radial measurements

See Show curve curvature

Options

Plot Value

Curvature: the quill lengths indicate the curvature at that point on the curve (default).

Radius: the quill lengths indicate the radius at that point on the curve.

Unit Normal: the quill length is constant, so the quills only indicate the direction of the normal at that point on the curve.

Surf Relative

Display the curvature quills, for surface curves, in the direction of the surface normals.

This option has no effect on free curves.

Auto Scale

If this is checked, the scale of the curvature comb is automatically calculated to be proportional to the size of the object.

When this option is unchecked, a Scale Value slider appears, allowing you to set the comb's scale at the time of creation.

Scale Value

The scale applied to the comb quills.

The Scale Value option uses a logarithmic scale.

Samples

The initial sampling density per curve. Change this value after creating the comb by dragging the .

Display

Comb: Show the comb quills only.

Outline: Show the comb outline (the line connecting the endpoints of the comb quills) only.

Comb + Outline: Shows both the comb quills and the comb outline.

The comb and outline are drawn in different colors.

Torsion

Show torsion quills on the curve

Inflection Points

Show the inflection points on the curve with small blue arrows.

To speed up display, the arrows are only close approximations. To see the true inflection point, look for the point where the comb outline crosses the curve.

Show Radius Limit

Display regions of the curvature locator using different colors based on the radius value and the Min. Radius Limit and Max. Radius Limit values.

Min Max Radius

Indicates the points of maximum and minimum radius of curvature.

Min. Radius Limit, Max. Radius Limit

Regions of the curvature locator between the Min. Radius Limit and the Max. Radius Limit are drawn in with green quills. Regions of the curvature locator less than the Min. Radius Limit or greater than the Max. Radius Limit are drawn in with rose quills.

These options are only available when Show Radius Limit is on.

Enable Comb Cutoff

Limits the length of quills by the Cutoff Value.

Cutoff Value

Limit quills to this length.

This option is necessary because some plot values, such as the radius of a straight line, are infinite, or very large.

These options are also found in the Information Window when a Curve Curvature locator is selected. The Information Window has the following additional controls:

Window

Choose whether the annotation appears in all windows or only the current window.

Font Properties

Choose whether the text in the annotation uses a Default or Custom font.

Font Size

Adjust the size of the text when Font Properties is set to Custom.