Here’s a Python snippet that selects vertices sharing only two edges (using maya.cmds as mc):

With the mesh object selected,

[python]obj = mc.ls(sl=True)[0]
vertCount = mc.polyEvaluate(obj, v=True)
vertList = [‘{0}.vtx[{1}]’.format(obj,vert) for vert in range(vertCount) if len(mc.polyInfo(‘{0}.vtx[{1}]’.format(obj,vert), ve=1)[0].split(‘:’)[1].split()) == 2]
mc.select(vertList)[/python]
The if statement containing the polyInfo command does the filtering by counting the number of edges around the queried vertex. Unfortunately this returns a line of values in a string, so I had to split it a couple times to retrieve the edges count. For example, vertex 302 of ‘polySurface’ is shared by the edges 506, 489, 484, and 485:
 
[python]mc.polyInfo(‘polySurface.vtx[302]’, ve=1)[0]
# Result: u’VERTEX 302: 506 489 484 485 n’ #[/python]

UPDATE: A vertex sharing two edges is called ‘winged’. Here’s another way to select winged vertices using PyMEL (as pm)…

[python]obj = pm.ls(sl=True)[0]
vertList = [obj.verts[v] for v in range(len(obj.verts)) if len(obj.verts[v].connectedEdges()) == 2]
pm.select(vertList)[/python]

Testing to emulate a thermal camera as close as possible with After Effects. As a reference, I used a video that was recorded with the FLIR camera. First I tried a tutorial where they use Photoshop, but it turns out that the Colorama effect in After Effects works just as well.

I still need to figure out a good algorithm that translates a color sample to a temperature value (click here for a simple example). There’s a few more details that I need to work on. For example, if you watch the real footage, you may notice the shifting in the color phase, as indicated in the right-side gradient bar. This is also accompanied by the shift in the high/low threshold temperatures. Hopefully I’ll get a decent-looking thermal camera effect for a piece I’d like to do.