I'm working on a heart monitor effect. The design needs to be 3d so that I can move the camera around, behind and follow the monitor as it moves along. Initially, my intention was to build a spline in the shape of this monitor's line and then attach an object with a trail. Or possibly to grow an object along this path.

However, I'm now interested in creating this spline procedurally over time using chops. I'm fairly new to this area and am open to suggestions on using chops to grow a spline similar to a heart monitor. Or possibly to animate particles in the shape of the monitor's line. Hope I'm clear on this monitor look. You know, beep…beep…beep, in a wave pattern. Also, it's inteneded more as a graphical element and doesnt need to be exaclty the correct wave pattern. Just needs to look good.

you could just create the curve you wanted, the full length of it. then use the Carve SOP to start at the beginning and move to the end, even animating the carve so that it moved in a pulsing fashion to reveal more of the curve.

good luck
-jacob

Good suggestion. Thats what I've done. However, I've generated the shape of the curve using the Pulse Chop. That way its fully procedural.

Hi Shannon,

Here's something that might help:

http://www.digitalcinemaarts.com/dev/debug/heart_wave1.hip.gz [digitalcinemaarts.com]

It generates the heart waveform all in CHOPs and exports copies that have been “filtered” via the Lag CHOP to a piece of geometry.

Have fun.


–Mark

Mark, I can't thank you enough.

I've created an usable approximation of a pulse by manipulating params in the pulse chop, however what you've posted seems to be far closer to the real deal. This is a great learning tool. I'm already tearing it apart.