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Make Maya mel File

make_maya_mel_file.Rmd

Generating a Maya .mel script from a dataset is fairly straightforward. If the data is already in the format for making a ternary plot (including muscle and the orogin and insertion columns), then it is as simple as calling make_mel(). If the data are coming from stl mesh files, then follow the steps in “Working with stl files” to make a tibble ready for ternary plotting. This would replace AL_008 int he code below.

library(MuscleTernary)

AL008 <- read_csv(system.file("extdata",
                             "AL_008_data.csv",
                             package = "MuscleTernary"),
                 show_col_types = FALSE)
AL008
#> # A tibble: 18 × 9
#>    muscle side  x_origin y_origin z_origin x_insertion y_insertion z_insertion
#>    <chr>  <chr>    <dbl>    <dbl>    <dbl>       <dbl>       <dbl>       <dbl>
#>  1 mAMES  L         87.6     41.6   -168.        109.         4.92      -133. 
#>  2 mAMES  R        -83.8     45.1   -163.       -108.         7.69      -141. 
#>  3 mAMEM  L         34.2     42.8   -140.        103.        -1.59      -129. 
#>  4 mAMEM  R        -30.2     43.4   -139.       -103.         2.88      -144. 
#>  5 mAMEP  L         27.1     65.4   -130.         92.2       -9.95       -71.7
#>  6 mAMEP  R        -19.7     69.6   -128.        -90.2       -2.99       -79.1
#>  7 mAMP   L         64.2     35.9   -172.        110.       -53.8       -140. 
#>  8 mAMP   R        -63.6     35.8   -173.       -108.       -51.9       -138. 
#>  9 mPSTs  L         23.3     68.3   -118.         95.9      -78.9        -17.5
#> 10 mPSTs  R        -16.9     69.0   -116.        -88.2      -78.5        -11.9
#> 11 mPSTp  L         19.5     48.9   -119.         97.8      -59.6       -143. 
#> 12 mPSTp  R        -12.5     48.7   -117.        -92.9      -58.1       -144. 
#> 13 mPTd   L         38.8     21.3    -68.8        91.0      -28.5       -222. 
#> 14 mPTd   R        -34.9     20.6    -62.6       -91.5      -26.2       -221. 
#> 15 mPTv   L         47.8    -50.5   -129.        112.       -21.2       -246. 
#> 16 mPTv   R        -40.9    -47.4   -129.       -114.       -22.1       -239. 
#> 17 mDM    L         76.4     56.2   -206.         86.7        9.90      -255. 
#> 18 mDM    R        -75.5     58.0   -201.        -90.7       13.1       -251. 
#> # ℹ 1 more variable: force <dbl>

We’ll pass the parameter write_file = FALSE so that the .mel file is not written to disk. In normal practice, you would set write_file = TRUE (or leave out this option because this is the default behavior).

make_mel(stl = "AL_008.stl",
         shader_file = "default",
         data = AL008,
         write_file = FALSE)

Once the file is written, move it to the same folder as your stl mesh (if it is not already) and execute in Maya. This script contains all the information that Maya needs to import the stl, create the arrows, scale and color them.