[Essay] Extend from or extend by?

[lachdanan]

Hi,

If you want to say you want to extend the rope, would you say:

"Extend the rope by the ends"

or

"Extend the rope from the ends"

?

However this is digital so I am actually talking about increasing the length of the rope so it will be longer



Thanks.

 

[5jj]

How can you extend the length of a rope?

 

[lachdanan]

Digitally This is for a software and I am trying to write the description of the operation, but I am not sure of the right way. You can replace the rope with a line, or curve for instance. Not sure if that would change the usage of the extend.

 

[MikeNewYork]

How does one lengthen the rope? By clicking on the ends? If so, then just say that.

 

[lachdanan]

Thanks but I can't write it that way. The general guidelines for the help files of the software I am using state to describe what the tool does in the first line, now how it's used. So it's not a tooltip/status help, but the actual concise description of the tool.

For example:

"Projects points onto a geometry."

So I have to say something like:

"Extends a line by the ends."

But I am not sure if I am using a correct phrase, etc.

Also it's not an interactive tool but rather an API function, so you pass a line and it extends it by the values provided, i.e:

polygon Geometry.Curves.Extend(input, index, length);

I didn't want to get into this much detail as then people are gonna complain about too much info

 

[MikeNewYork]

Your software is very specific. Why not ask the designer?

 

[lachdanan]

Yeah I know, but I am the only guy who is designing and implementing features. Because it's for me as well as others.

 

[5jj]

Not a software designer.

Assuming that "Projects points onto a geometry." means something in your context, then I see that it does not say how it projects the points. Perhaps you just need to say "Increases/extends the length of lines".

In the physical world, if I want to make a line longer, I have to start at one end.

 

[Tdol]

Stretch the rope?

 

[Amigos4]

In the digital world one would "click and drag" the end of the rope until the desired length is achieved.

 

[lachdanan]

Thanks guys.

Well I used the first one "Extends an open curve by the ends.".

@5jj: That description was for another function. But basically it would just say that and then you would know the generally idea. After that like you said it details the different options like projecting using point normals or projecting using the minimum distance to the target geometry.

I could use increase/decrease length but that would be too vague IMO. Because you could resample a curve and that would alter the length, or you could refine the curve, that would also alter the length by a tiny amount. Because these are NURBS curves. So that's why IMO extend is clearer as you know it immediately.

@amigos: No because it's not interactive.


Also have a look at this help for more info:
http://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini13.0/nodes/sop/ray

That's the same format basically.