Curvature map like material

Does anybody have an idea how many a curvature map could be rebuild via a shader in Blender?

I looked into the sharp edge display from the 3d printing add-on but it seems not to work as I need it.

In short what I would like to visualize is how a surface bends.

Below is a screenshot from Alias that shows flat surfaces in green and bend surfaces in red.

Have you tried using the Pointiness output from the Geometry node?

From the manual:

An approximation of the curvature of the mesh per vertex. Lighter values indicate convex angles, darker values indicate concave angles.

It being approximated per vertex makes the result depend on the mesh density but I guess the idea of ‘curvature’ is a little weird for a mesh anyway.

Putting the Pointiness value through a color ramp does give you something that at least looks similar to a curvature display, after you play a little bit with the range. Depending on what you wanna use it for it might be enough.

Looks like this is not eeVee ready … darn …

But in general this works well
The yellow red is a better surface while the one with blue tones shows surface flow issues (pinches)
While Vertex based

Yeah, unfortunately pointiness is Cycles only at the moment.
Alternatively I found that the Mesh Analysis > Sharp Overlay can give you a similar result in edit mode. Or is that the thing you already mentioned trying?

yeah that one works too but I feel it seems less working the way I need it because it colors geometry ends

it is actually pretty precise - sadly it is hard to adjust the gradient color

did you try this one

Cavity / screen curvature EEVEE

but can also use new bevel node

or this one here

there is also the zebra nodes set up
might work!

you could at the limit go back to 2.49 which had a built in
curvature parameter/ function and render it in 2.49!

there is an addon call curvature2D which seems to be related to freestyle
may be someone can enlighten us on that function!

happy cl

I dont think this is in terms of surface curvature what I am looking for.

The zebra system is good to check if two surfaces flow G0 G1 G2 into each other.
The curvature map is easier to use when looking for noise deformations on a surface.
Obviously the best are surface curvature combs

The mesh analysis is actually working fine.


Screen Shot 2020-12-29 at 6.11.27 PM

This will serve well using also the shader based evaluation for checking the surfaces next semester when my students starts using sub-d in Blender for modeling.

I love that one ! it makes quick poly mesh based concept modeling in blender with sub-d and booleans very useful when rendering the concepts before doing a clean cad in Fusion.

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can you show an examples using bevel node
so others users can redo it if needed

did you try to do it in 2.49 with built in function ?

but may not be possible to import in 2.9

thanks
happy bl

I dont understand

you did a test using the bevel node ?

would be nice what you got as result and how it was done

happy cl

oh man ops !

In this model I did not use any bevel node