| ARC603 Drawing II, Digital Lecture: Parametric modeling |
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| Main Entry: pa·ram·e·ter; noun Etymology: New Latin, from para- + Greek metron measure 1 a : an arbitrary constant whose value characterizes a member of a system (as a family of curves); also : a quantity (as a mean or variance) that describes a statistical population b : an independent variable used to express the coordinates of a variable point and functions of them -- compare PARAMETRIC EQUATION 2 : any of a set of physical properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something <parameters of the atmosphere such as temperature, pressure, and density> 4 : LIMIT, BOUNDARY -- usually used in plural <the parameters of science fiction> From Meriam Webster dictionary |
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formZ can be described as dealing with two kings of modeling objects
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| Facetted objects are stored it its
database as boundary representations, or b-reps. Fundamentally all facetted objects are
defined or anchored by points, locations in 3 dimensional space, each with its own x, y
and z coordinates. Formz uses the notion of topology to describe the connection between
the points. Facetted objects are also known as polygonal or plain objects. All of the values (points, segments, faces, volumes, etc.) can be considered variables. |
Parametric objects are the result of a process of parametric
modelling, that is, the information that is stored amounts to a description of the process
by which the object is generated rather than the description of the object itself. Since the properties of the object type are known, fewer variables are required to describe the object. |
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