How to create motion path in a tortuous vessel

[Anonymous]

Hello:

I work in the field of medical imaging. I would like to create a motion path along inside a tortuous vessel to place camera.  Using simple rendering and connecting points for motion path, it is difficult when you have curved vessel.  Can you suggest easier way to achieve this?

thank you,

AS

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous and welcome to the community!

For a tortous vessel, I believe the simplest way to do this would be to use and edge that runs around the vessel as your motion path and/or create a motion path that follows the shape of the vessel.

This video provides a simple but in depth look into using cameras with motion paths!

Please let me know if this helps or if you need any more assistance!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

Hi Sean:

Thank you, Sean:

How do I create motion path to follow shape? When I click motion path, I do not see any option to follow shape. Can you please suggest how I can go about it? If you wish I can send you .obj of the vessel that I created.

thanks

AS

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

Motion paths don't work for a shape, they work for an edge or curve.

Have you had a chance to watch that video I linked above. The process in that video should explain what you can do and how you can relate it to following a tortuous vessel. 

[Anonymous]

Hi Sean:

I saw the video. First of all, video is quite complicated and not related to what I want to do. The video simply creates different motion paths. In my case, I do have a shape based on some odd shape of vessel. I have wire frame of that vessel. I need to simply follow along inside the vessel and create a path.

This will simplify creating paths for lots of tortuous vessels I am studying.

Thank you and appreciate your help!

Wold you like the vessel mesh file to generate one?

thanks

AS

[sean.heasley]

Hi @ashettySSLFS

I went ahead and made a quick video to breakdown how you can use the edges of an object as a motion path!

If you're still confused after this video, please feel free to attach your scene file here or via dropbox/google drive or another file sharing program so I can take a look at it!

Please let me know if this helps or if you need any more assistance!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Sean.

That is fantastic, Sean. I  appreciate you taking time to help. I will study this video carefully and let you know once I have a grip on it.  However, I am going to send you a section of a vessel that I created into a  mesh frame from "Slicer3D".  Please, have a look and if you can post steps on that, that would be fantastic.

It is a small anonymized  file. Is there a separate private email that I can send it to?

As always, I greatly appreciate your help.

AS

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

No problem! I hope the video helps!

As for your file, feel free to send it to me in a private message and I'll take a look!

[Anonymous]

Hi Sean:

I was not able to click open the video that you posted.  Please, check if something went wrong. I was trying to open from forum using another desktop.

Thanks

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

There isn't an issue with the video so it might be your web browser. You may need to check to make sure flash is up to date and/or try a different browser like Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox.

[Anonymous]

Sean:

Thanks, and yes you are correct. I am ok with opening it.  What is your private email or is there one I can send the scene now?

thanks

AS

[Anonymous]

Hi Sean:

Attached is the .obj scene

Thanks,

AS

[sean.heasley · Accepted solution]

Hi @ashettySSLFS

Thanks for sending me the file!

I went ahead and made another video of myself working with your specific scene file!

Let me know if this helps you out!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

thank you so much, Sean.

The key here is "snap to point", so that points are anchored and do not move in plane. This really helps. BTW, when I ran the scene that I created , I could not create as a movie output. Everything worked fine in fly-through but did not create output movie. Did I uncheck anything? Secondly, how do I control magnification?  It seems when running fly-through image is outside the screen. Can I reduce mag so that I am able to get the perspective of it.?

My goal is to generate movie like the one attached here. This was downloaded from the internet (a publication from a group in Brazil). They have used slicer3D and MAYA.  I was able to crate mesh form using slicer 3D, which serves as input for MAYA. However, I do not understand how they were able to achieve above volume rendered semitransparent image with colored overlapping tracheal fly-through.

Any ideas?

Thank you so much for help.

[Anonymous]

Hi Sean:

Are you able to open the last clip I sent you?

How do I scale and make it not move?  As I place cursor, the object seems to move all over.

Thanks!

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

For the transparent model, they simply created a material and changed the transparency of it which can be found in the Material Attributes.

As for your second question, what do you mean scale and make it not move? I'm confused as to what you are trying to change.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Sean:

When I start my cine, the field of view is so large that it covers screen. I would like it to be of size that can be seen on screen as shown in previously attached video. Is there a camera focal length or depth adjustment to alter that?

When I import the vessel scene, it's size is so large that I am not able to scale down to manageable size. Beside, as soon as I keep mouse pointer, it goes all over space. I need it fixed and not pivoted to a fixed point.

How do I generate a cine file out of camera run?

Finally, how do I color segments. I will use materialize option. DO I make segments before coloring?

Thanks as always, Sean.

AS

[sean.heasley]

Hi @Anonymous

What do you mean by cine? Do you mean the render/video?

There are options to change the camera which can be found in the Attribute Editor.

I'm not sure what you mean by the vessel being too large, unless you're importing it into another scene. If that is the case, you should be able to simply select the model and scale it down to match the size of your scene.

For the color, you can change it at any point by changing the Material Attributes.

It sounds like you may be a bit new to Maya and animations like this so I would also highly recommend checking out some tutorials on YouTube or other 3D art websites!

If one or more of these posts helped answer your question, please click Accept as Solution on the posts that helped you so others in the community can find them easily.

Kudos are greatly appreciated. Everyone likes a thumbs up!

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Sean.

I am bit new to the MAYA. Please, bear with me.  I am attaching an obj of MRI data of a brain. I would like to see how you create transparency of brain and within brain color different cortex with different color like in the previous video.

I am learning quite a bit through you and youtube.  Please, bear with me for a short while.

thanks

AS

[sean.heasley]

Hi @ashettySSLFS

Thanks for attaching the object!

The model is a bit of a mess and is combined so there won't be an easy way to do what you're trying to do with that model. I went ahead and made another video explaining what you need to do next!