Update: I Can Now Make Vector Fields in Blender
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The article on tensors will come out soon, but I might also want to work on making stream lines.
Blender is quickly becoming one of my favorite tools to use. It’s incredibly powerful, runs at breakneck speeds, and it has a great workflow once you get used to it. The only thing I would consider lackluster is its scripting interface, but even then it’s still pretty good for something that doesn’t seem to be used that often. I wish the documentation were written a little better, but I say that about everything. Anyway, over the course of two streams, I figured out how to make an extremely extensible vector field.
Why This Vector Field is Better Than Everyone Else’s Vector Field
The essence of the Unix philosophy has been summarized as
- Write programs that do one thing and do it well.
- Write programs to work together.
- Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.
While perfectly following any philosophy will often lead to ruin, I’ve found it better to lean on the side of the Unix philosophy than against it. Other people seem to disagree. These people tend to prefer making crazy complicated messes that depend on everything else in non-trivial ways. Maybe it’s because developers don’t get enough time and money to do things correctly. Maybe it’s some form of job security. I don’t want to be an armchair psychologist, so I’ll just talk about how this program works.
The One Thing it Does Well
This program does exactly one thing. It takes the following data:
- The maximum length you’ll allow for a vector.
