Creating a 0-255 color gradient along a path representing a 0-360 angle

Hi,

This is my first post here, and i've been busting my head with this issue. I wathed the basic maxscripting tutorial but a while ago and i haven't really practiced. I use grasshopper for rhino to make concepts and even working mechanisms but i can't put in code myself.

I want to output a bitmap to use as a control for multiscatter plugin for max. It does rotation based on a map where 0 is -180deg, .5 is 0deg and 1.0 is 180deg. My idea was just to copy a bunch of sloped planes along a path and use a normal map to extract this info. Unfortunately this doesn't really work as i planed, as i get repetition, something like going from zero to 180 deg and then back to zero.

I was wondering if this is something that could be scripted, and if i could handle it if i refreshed my memory with a bit of tutorials and default help.

I could model a plane with X subdivisions in one direction. This plane could follow a curve by using the path deform modifier. The curve would be divided by X as well, and a vector taken for each point, by subtracting it from every next. If these vectors are converted to angles, a gradient could be created. Or possibly the original plane could be exploded so each of the polygons gets a new material with a color responding to the angles 0-255 equals 0-360 degrees.