The ellipse node creates ellipses given a set of main parameters: major/minor radii, eccentricity, focal length. Additional parameters allow you to tweak the ellipse curve: phase, rotation, scale and x/y exponents.
Super Ellipse formula:
(x/a)^n + (y/b)^m = 1
Different values of the x and y exponents (n and m) generate various shapes such as: asteroid, square/rhombus, circle/ellipse, squircle/rectellipse.
asteroid: 0 < n,m < 1
square/diamond: n/m = 1
circle/ellipse: n/m = 2
squircle/rectellipse: n/m > 2
Inputs
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All inputs are vectorized and they will accept single or multiple values.
- **Major Radius**
- **Minor Radius** [1]
- **Eccentricity** [2]
- **Focal Length** [3]
- **Num Verts**
- **Phase** [4]
- **Rotation** [4]
- **Scale**
- **Exponent X**
- **Exponent Y**
Notes:
[1] : The Minor Radius is available in **ab** mode
[2] : The Eccentricity is available in **ae** mode
[3] : The Focal Length is available in **ac** mode
[4] : The angles are in DEGREES. The Property Panel has option to set angle units as: RADIANS, DEGREES or UNITIES.
Parameters
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The **Mode** parameter allows to select one of the three modes of defining the ellipse: **ab**, **ae** and **ac**.
- In **ab** mode the ellipse is defined by the major radius (a) and minor radius (b).
- In **ae** mode the ellipse is defined by the major radius (a) and the eccentricity (e).
- In **ac** mode the ellipse is defined by the major radius (a) and the focal length (c).
Note: when switching modes the main ellipse parameters for the new mode are derived based on the main parameters of the previous mode as to keep the ellipse the same.
The **Centering** parameter lets you center the ellipse around one of its focal points F1 or F2 or around its center C.
All parameters except **Mode** and **Centering** can take values from the node itself or an external input.
The inputs are "sanitized" to restrict their values to valid domains:
- Major radius (a) and Minor radius (b) are floats with values >= 0.0 and b <= a
- Eccentricity is a float with value in the range [0.0, 1.0]
- Focal Length is a float with value in the range [0.0, a]
- Number of vertices is an integer with value >= 3
These are the vertices, edges and polygons of the ellipse.
**F1**, **F2**
These are the locations of the ellipse foci.
Presets
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A set of super ellipse configuration **presets** is available for convenience. Once a preset is selected the super ellipse settings are updated with the preset values and the user can modify the settings to further alter the super ellipse shape.
Note: once a setting is altered (after selecting a preset) the preset selection is cleared from the preset drop-down indicating that the new setting configuration is no longer the one corresponding to the previously selected preset.