Subject: Re: Parametric Modeling
From: Ed Hoffmann <[email-masked]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 14:33:47 -0500

Parametric modeling is a method of assigning parameters to features, as 
opposed to numeric values (although, of course, at some point you must 
assign a value to the parameters). Example: You create a sphere and 
boolean subtract it from a cubic, then offset a triangle from that. If 
you paramterize the sphere diameter, lengths of cube sides, and triangle 
offset, you could later edit them. So, you create your furry woodland 
creature by boolean subtracting the eyeball from the head to get a 
socket, but your client (of course) wants Bambi (tm) to have bigger eyes. 
Doh! Instead of starting over, you edit the parameter list, assign a 
bigger sphere radius to the eyeball and *bam!* it does all the booleans, 
etc you originally did to make the model (it remembers which parameters 
are parents or children).  That is a simple example. In engineering, this 
is called Nirvana...

------------------------------------  my sig!  ------------------------------
|   I brew the beer I drink!   #   No animals were harmed in the testing of |
|Ohio Valley Amiga Users Group #      this sig  -  save the mock turtle!    |
|  http://www.ovaug.org        #  http://goodnews.net/members/ehoffman/web  |

On Thu, 14 Dec 1995, David Warner wrote:

> Okay, I'm gonna show off my ignorance again and ask "What is Parametric 
> Modeling??"