TouchDesigner, research 3d fractal

TouchDesigner: introduction

Started using TouchDesigner today. After installing TouchDesigner, I watched some tutorials from The 100 Series: TouchDesigner Fundamentals (https://learn.derivative.ca/courses/100-fundamentals/lessons/101-navigating-the-environment/) and took some notes, joined the tutorials and saw if I came out the same.

I didn’t do everything.

• 101: did I completely
• 104: seemed interesting as I want to work with 3d fractals
• 108: looked at optimisation & what do to with crashes
  
  Instead of continuing to follow these basic tutorials, I decided to recreate a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuLpaUpCaek) I had saved to get a bit used to TouchDesigner. Explains it well and discusses the different things.
  
  I found it interesting to see how using an L-system (mini piece of Python) & animating noise particles (also with Python, nothing else from Python, but clicking buttons, connecting wires…) to get a 360-degree rotating tree.
  
  At the moment, I still can’t follow why you now need this particular operator to do something.
  
  Below you can see my result. I just followed the steps and didn’t experiment too much yet, because want to understand the basics.

Researching Rhombus fractal in 3d

I didn’t feel like continuing to learn TouchDesigner for a while and decided to think further about how to start making my Rhombus fractal in 3d.

Yesterday, I looked up how to start printing a 3d fractal. A 3d printer usually uses a .stl file, so we need to look up how to convert code to .stl.

Of these, I found several sources on 3d point cloud that you need to create and then convert this as a mesh and export it as .stl.

Sources:

• Florent Poux
  • Created a tutorial how to create 3D meshes from point clouds in Python in different formats:
    • video format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ydo7RXDl7MM
    • text file: https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/254933/1/TDS_generate_3D_meshes_with_python.pdf
    • code: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1HXVOK53ac6BJHAFxdEVluhFr7UAZKtDV#scrollTo=xIL9q3EeOICm
  • Made also a 3d Python setup for beginners: https://learngeodata.eu/3d-python-environment-setup-7-steps-guide-for-beginners/
  • All necessary tools, software… for 3d point cloud processing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4959ovXkUg
• long article with different approaches of 3d modeling in Python: https://medium.com/@alexeyyurasov/3d-modeling-with-python-c21296756db2
• 3D visualisation of STL files with Python: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llq9-oJXepQ
  
  I devised a workflow from this:

1. create the Rhombus Sierpinski fractal as a 3d point cloud in Python
2. create 3d mesh (export as .stl)
3. see it in 3d
4. 3d print fractal
   
   But first of all, I need to understand how to start creating the 2d fractal in 3d. The Sierpinski Rhombus fractal is very similar to the merger sponge, so I was looking for tutorials on how to make the merger sponge with code.
   
   I won’t do this in Processing because:

• Doesn’t have a 3d primitive like polyhedron (only box() and sphere()).
• I would still like to be able to 3d print by code.
  • I need to be able to export my 3d fractal to .stl, but hadn’t seen any examples of this whether this would be possible with Processing, well with Python.
  • Today I also came across Blender’s Python API. So instead of designing, I can also code in this Python API 🤔 that is in Blender. This might make the process easier…
    

Conclusion: I will continue with Python. (Also mentioned in sources was C++, which is faster than Python, for exporting a .stl file after naming a 3d point cloud).

I installed Python & pip (package installer for Python) and looked at code how a 3d cube is drawn.