Rhino - Cam and Follower

Method to copy and place the group (consisting of a circle and a point) so that the copies are at each point along the scalloped curve and the circles tangents are on each point?

The quick way, since the points are evenly distributed, is to use ArrayCrv. Place one copy of the circle/point group at one end of the scallop like this:

Since the scallop is a series of arcs, Select the circle and point and start Orient. Set Scale to No. Put on the Near and Point osnaps, (or Quad and Cen would work as well). Snap the first base point to the circle itself (near or quad) and the second to the center of the circle, or your point. Now put on Point and Cen Osnaps and place the circle snapping first to the point on the scallop, then the center of the arc the point lies on.

Then use ArrayCrv with 51 copies. Set the base point to the point where the circle hits the scallop. You could also repeat the above Orient routine with Copy=Yes, placing copies at each point and snapping to the center.

In cases where the scallop is not made up of arcs, to place the first circle, Offset the scalloped curve to the left by some reasonble distance, say .25. Use the same technique as above but use the Perp osnap for the second target point- so the first target point is one of the points on the curve, the second is perp on the offset curve. -Pascal Rhino Newsgroup