Spline
A spline is a curve or collection of continuous curves that are defined by a set of (in this case) 3D points. Unlike point clouds, splines are an excellent type of geometry for drone formation definition because they can be split up infinitely to support any number of drones.
Spline Shapes
There are multiple spline-based shapes that can be generated/manipulated with simple parameters. Any of these shapes can be converted into an "Editable Spline" by selected the associated button in the spline edit toolbar.
These shapes include:
Color
Splines can be assigned solid colors, or gradients. If a gradient is assigned, then the gradient will be applied along the spline in order from the start to end.
Editing Splines
When selecting one or more splines, spline shapes, or compound splines, a toolbar will appear on the top of the scene view. This toolbar provides quick ways of manipulating splines, editing geometry, and managing groupings. Buttons become enabled/disabled based on the current selection and state of the splines.
These buttons are responsible for changing a shape into another shape container. Some tools and options are not available unless a bezier shape is converted into an editable spline or the shape is a compound spline.
This set of tools provide high-level ways of manipulating one or more splines. They also expose ways of grouping/ungrouping splines into and out of compound splines.
Center Anchor
Automatically shift the shape's centroid to be the average of all spline control points
Shift Anchor
Enter a mode where the anchor can be shifted while keeping the spline's geometry world-locked. To stop anchor shifting, the button must be toggled again.
Reverse
Reverse the order of the points in the spline. This will result in an identical spline, but with start and end points reversed. Useful for ensuring that lighting effects move in the correct direction
Reverse
Reverse the order of the points in the spline. This will result in an identical spline, but with start and end points reversed. Useful for ensuring that lighting effects move in the correct direction
Duplicate
Duplicates the selected spline/s. This only works for compound splines. The duplicated spline will appear as a new sub-spline.
Spline must be converted to a compound spline to use the Duplicate tool
Separate (Ungroup)
Removes the selected splines from their current compound spline and puts them into separate standalone splines.
This button array provides a way to choose selection mode as well as entering/exiting spline edit mode. Edit mode must be entered to modify spline anchor points or use the geometry tools
Edit Mode (Exit Edit Mode)
Enter edit mode and allow geometry to be selected and manipulated. The button will toggle to an X when active and must be clicked again to exit edit mode.
Anchor Point/Vertex Selection Mode
Enter anchor point selection mode where only anchor points (points that lie directly on geometry) can be selected
Smooth Geometry
Takes all selected geometry and sets it to be as smooth as possible by adjusting spline control points to be tangential and parallel
Straighten Geometry
Takes all selected geometry and sets it to be as straight or sharp as possible by adjusting spline control points to be coincident (or on top of eachother) for each anchor point
Extrude Geometry
Takes selected segment (or vertex if on an endpoint) and creates a new line on each side so that it may be pulled away without disturbing surrounding segments
Slotting Control
Pivot Weighting
The design studio leverages geometric information to make decisions around where to place slots. In the case of a spline, harsh angles or "corners" can be treated specially and the software well make sure that a drone is placed exactly on the corner. This will maximize detail and definition.
Use Pivot Weighting: Enable/Disable the use of pivot weighting in the slot solution
Pivot Angle Threshold: The angle (in degrees) that a corner must be below in order for it to be treated as a pivot point
Partial Spline
The slot solver can be set to use only a portion of a spline. This is particularly useful in combination with animating the slot offset field if you want to move a group of splines along a path.
You must disable pivot weighting in order to use partial spline functionality
Use Partial Spline: Enable/Disable the use of a partial spline
Start Percent (%): The location (in percent, where 0% is the start and 100% is the end) to start the spline
End Percent (%): The location (in percent, where 0% is the start and 100% is the end) to end the spline
Hull Slot Solver
Along with the standard linear solver, there is also a mode that allows a spline shape to be filled in.
Hull Projection Axis
Description: Specifies the axis along which the spline is projected to compute the 2D hull for slotting.
Options:
X, Y, Z: Choose the axis orthogonal to the hull's plane. Used to flatten 3D splines into a 2D working surface.
Slot Mode
Description: Determines the algorithm used to generate the filled surface inside the spline’s hull. This affects how vertices are distributed across the area enclosed by the projected hull.
Options:
Scaled Fit
Fills the convex or concave polygonal region and then stretch them so that points touch the boundary of the shape
Ideal for structured interpolation and clean, regular fills.
Can set the number of columns/rows directly or define a density for placement
Poisson Distribution
Inserts vertices using a Poisson disk sampling method.
Ensures randomly distributed points with a minimum distance between them, avoiding clumping while preserving uniformity.
Best suited for naturalistic or non-uniform point distributions (e.g., organic modeling, scattered elements).
Row and scanline settings are ignored in this mode.
Density controls how close/far points are distributed
Random seed can be tweaked to get slightly different distributions
Bounded Grid
Fills the hull area with a regular grid of points, clipped to the boundary of the projection.
Produces a structured mesh of evenly spaced rows and columns, spacing is identical vertically and horizontally.
Works well for mechanical or architectural shapes requiring evenly spaced subdivisions.
Density controls how close/far points are distributed
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