Python equivalent of the Xpresso node "Get nearest point on spline"?

ops

Hi everyone!
Is there a python sdk equivalent of the Xpresso node 'Get Nearest Point On Spline'?
Since it exists as an Xpresso node, I would think it must exist for python script. If anyone has any idea, I would very much appreciate you sharing it!
Thanks!

i_mazlov

Hi @ops,

Welcome to the Maxon developers forum and its community, it is great to have you with us!

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About your First Question

No, unfortunately there's no such function that does exactly what you need in a plug&play manner, so you basically need to implement this yourself.

However, this question has already been tackled in another thread here: GetSplinePoint REVERSE. Ferdinand provided there some code with extensive details in the comments.

Cheers,
Ilia

ops

Hi @i_mazlov !
Thank you for your response and sharing the forum rules. I have gone over them. BTW it seems that the first link is broken, but I found it here:
https://developers.maxon.net/forum/topic/15242/forum-overview

As for the getsplinepoint function, it's good to just verify that I haven't missed its existence somewhere. I ended up using the Xpresso node and using its output in my python script. I will refer to Ferdinand's code if I have no way around it in the future.

ferdinand

Hey @ops , thanks for pointing that out, there was a slash missing in our new users template, breaking that link. I have fixed that.

And as a side note, the code Ilia linked samples the underlying line object of the spline while the Xpresso node actually samples the spline. I.e., when you have a very low resolution spline sampling set in your spline, you will end up with vastly different results than actually sampling the spline. I then chose this approach deliberately in that case as it is the much saner way to do this. But it is not the same.

Cheers,
Ferdinand

mikeudin

Hi @ops !
Take a look to my version of @ferdinands solution. I was made some fixes to the code. Hope you find it usefull.
find_close_point_on_spline.c4d

ops

Thanks a LOT @ferdinand and @mikeudin , for sharing your insights and suggestions!
They are definitely valuable and am sure will come in handy in the future!!!