Stephan Moenninghoff

Ah, I didn't think of the preceding 0. Thanks, Alan. Does Random still work now? I can't test just now. My PC is busy rendering and on the Mac it's still crashing. (They are on it though. This is slated to be fixed for SP3 :-)

I have uploaded the current version of my parametric books. Features: Places books from a designated symbol folder in a box ("shelf") Eliminates books that are too tall or wide for the box Allows to randomize the sequence of placement within each book collection (symbol folder) Option to repeat the list to fill long shelves Six different types of random angles or all straight Offset from shelf edge (Random Max/Min) Allows for any number of stacks in-between standing books Number of books per stack (Random Max/Min) Offset and angles for stacked books (Random Max/Min) Option to have only stacks, no upright books Download Link: https://forum.vectorworks.net/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=4863 Alternate Link: http://www.interiorcad.org/upload/marionette/Marionette-Books.vwx.zip Known Issues: Modifying existing Marionettes runs smoothly, even with long shelves. However, placing new objects using the red symbol in the document or duplicating an existing Marionette takes a long time. I don't know if this is my own wiring or something else. I have logged a bug with Vectorworks. Let's see what it turns out to be. The gap between angled books and stacks is not correct. I'm running out of time :-). Maybe I'll fix that later. Here's a video to explain a little more in-depth what this does:

Thanks, @DomC. This is very useful.

Ok, Thanks!

Is there something I can do to freeze a Marionette object node and effectively stop it from regenerating each time I move it? I would prefer it if it would only regenerate when parameters are changed.

@Coastal Design you may want to check out interiorcad for Vectorworks. It will generate DXF files for just about any type of router and you can export your 3D parametric cabinet or individual parts without any extra manual work involved. Here are some Youtube videos and there is more info on https://en.extragroup.de. Cheers --Stephan

@the frog can you explain how you did this successfully? I cannot get this to work. I use 0 to 9 and then what? A? What about labels starting with A? How does Marionette know that my "A" is not part of a label? Thanks!

I can't see any difference in performance on my end between books consisting of meshes and books modeled in VWX. If you have time, would you try using the Penguin paperback collection instead of the Paperbacks? Does that make a difference on your computer in terms of execution speed? BTW the reason why I'm using the meshes is I made them outside of VWX (in an app designed to do just box shots of objects) and then imported them via OBJ. The UV mapping of the textures will get destroyed once I enter the mesh.

@MarissaFthat's some good news. I have a Windows machine here which I will use to continue working on this project for the time being. Thanks!

Thanks for all your comments. @Alan WoodwellI see the same problem with the "get list length" node. It will start to return zero after a few times running the network. I did put this down to my own noob wiring but maybe you are on to something there. What I am doing is I am sorting the books and then shuffling them inside their sorted blocks so I don't get very wide books stacking on top of very narrow books. At the same time, the stacks don't look totally neat. As I mentioned before, my next step would be to fix the distance between leaning books and stacks. Still a bit of work remaining but I'm loving it. Placing the books manually would have been hours of very dull, repetitive work.

No luck. Still crashing. I did hesitate to report this as a bug as it may be the way I'm connecting my network that is causing the crashing. However I see no way of debugging this.

I have reported the crashing. I have come to a point where I am unable to continue working. As soon as I add "Get 3D Info" and try to use the print node, I crash. I'll try copying and pasting to a new document to see if this helps. It would be a shame to abandon this project now. Lots of things to do. The spacing between angled books and stacks needs to be corrected :-)

OK, I'll file a bug. Thanks for confirming, @sbarrett!

Hi everyone, First of all: thanks for all the helpful threads and sample code that I was able to download from this forum. I have been putting together a marionette that pulls book symbols from a folder and places the symbols on a shelf. The script randomizes the books and allows for leaning books with some presets to choose from (random angles, leaning incrementally, all upright etc. You get the idea :-) ). I have now begun to introduce stacks as well. It is all going very well and I am enjoying working with marionette. Until I try to wrap my (fairly large) marionette. Sometimes, VWX will let me wrap everything and I get no errors. Sometimes, I get an error when I try to wrap. I then unwrap and the errors continue. Wrapping the same script on a duplicated layer with no changes made may or may not work. If it works, it will continue to work without a hitch. I have spent hours trying to debug errors of the type "Attribute Error: type object 'Move_Right_And_Up' has no attribute 'Params'. These always point to wrappers within the marionette network but I can see nothing wrong with them. There were some threads dealing with similar errors but none of the solutions mentioned seem to work in my case so, I guess it's time to ask for help. I attach a rendered scene with version 0.5 of the books (no stacks yet) and a dropbox link to the latest version of the file in case anyone wants to have a look. Each design layer contains exactly the same marionette with some of them throwing errors, and others working fine. I have labeled the design layers so it is easy to see which is which: https://www.dropbox.com/s/p0zyvf9kwxz10ao/Books (Stable%2C with Flat books v. 0.9).vwx?dl=0 Thanks! --Stephan

Hi Bob, can you check if this is the version of the manual you are using? https://conf.extragroup.de:8443/display/IM Thanks! --Stephan extragroup