Create cylinder primitive between 2 endpoints?

Questions & Answers
1

I'm playing a bit with reading model coordinates from a text file, and wondering how one would instantiate a cylinder primitive (arbitrary radius) between 2 fixed endpoints, x1,y1,z1 and x2,y2,z2.

Just wondering if anyone has an efficient quick way to do it.

2

This takes a default unity cylinder (must be added as a prefab) and stretches it out between two points, with a specified width. If you change it to a different cylinder, the scale may need to be manipulated slightly (right now it's divided by two as the default cylinder is 2m tall):

var cylinderPrefab : GameObject; //assumed to be 1m x 1m x 2m default unity cylinder to make calculations easy

//added the start function for testing purposes
function Start()
{
    CreateCylinderBetweenPoints(Vector3.zero, new Vector3(10, 10, 10), 0.5);
}

function CreateCylinderBetweenPoints(start : Vector3, end : Vector3, width : float)
{
    var offset = end - start;
    var scale = new Vector3(width, offset.magnitude / 2.0, width);
    var position = start + (offset / 2.0);

    var cylinder = Instantiate(cylinderPrefab, position, Quaternion.identity);
    cylinder.transform.up = offset;
    cylinder.transform.localScale = scale;
}
4

Here’s the working modified code for newer versions of Unity/C#:

using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using UnityEngine;

public class point2point : MonoBehaviour
{
    public Rigidbody cylinderPrefab; //assumed to be 1m x 1m x 2m default unity cylinder to make calculations easy

    // Start is called before the first frame update
    void Start()
    {
        CreateCylinderBetweenPoints(Vector3.zero, new Vector3(10, 10, 10), 0.5f);
    }

    void CreateCylinderBetweenPoints(Vector3 start, Vector3 end, float width)
    {
        var offset = end - start;
        var scale = new Vector3(width, offset.magnitude / 2.0f, width);
        var position = start + (offset / 2.0f);

        var cylinder = Instantiate(cylinderPrefab, position, Quaternion.identity);
        cylinder.transform.up = offset;
        cylinder.transform.localScale = scale;
    }

    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {
        
    }
}
3

Have a look at the source of this module, it creates a procedural cylinder. You might be able to easily make it create it from A to B.