Stephan Moenninghoff

You need to add one here. I think that does it. I haven't tested it much but it worked with your suppplied file.

Sure. Use the move node or feed what comes out of the "Get Point on Poly" (at the p port) into a "get xy" node. perform your additions to the x and y coordinates and feed that back into a point 2 node. That's your new coordinate.

The Symbol node takes a point input. Just replace the locus node with the symbol node and reference your symbol.

@Pat Stanford it may be worth noting that you cannot convert a line to a polygon without adding a third vertex. This is totally logical to old VWX dinosaurs but may not be for newbies. @Aneesh Carvalho other than that, what Pat says. That method will give you the first point on the polygon only so you need to use some more nodes to get the others. Something like this works: Name the polygon (bottom of the Object Info Palette) and use that as a criteria in the "Objs by Crit" node to identify the object that you want the Marionette to act on. Note that the polygon has three vertices, so it looks like a line but is, in fact, a polygon.

Yeah. Unfortunately, there is no node for that but I may file a VE 🙂

That worked. Create a drape surface. U and V iteration = 100. Name it "test2". Run the Marionette. Adjust level of embedding by changing the insertion point of the symbol and the rotation values in the Marionette. Ungroup. Reference a different symbol and repeat. Delete the symbol instances that are outside the icing and those that collide with others. Max. 10 minutes clean-up work. You could try and expand the Marionette to go looking for symbols that are placed too closely to others but it's hardly worth the effort, I don't think. Sprinkle v 2.0.vwx

You guys remember Drape Surface? I never thought I might be needing this some day... ROFL TBC...

Having limited success with a simple NURBS surface but the whole thing fails with a surface derived from the frosting geometry. I have tried to unclip but to no avail.

Just had another look. There may be hope...

FWIW, the way I went about placing the sprinkles via Marionette was to generate curves from the model and getting the points on each curve by subdivision. Each sprinkle-symbol is then placed on one of those points and rotated randomly. That is why they get embedded. If there was a way to generate random points on each surface of the frosting model and getting the normal's orientation at that point, the sprinkles could be placed perpendicular to the surface and then be rotated randomly. Unfortunately I don't know of a way to do that with Marionette.

I tried that. The frosting has overhanging cliffs, depending on the degree of twisting and the depth of the ridges. I don't think the DTM is meant to handle such conditions.

Here's the file. Play with randomization along the generated curves and add more symbols as you require. Some manual nudging may be required to get this to look the part. Sprinkles.vwx

...and again, Marionette comes to the rescue.

It's not too late to register 🙂

The slider should output integers. It's broken (but works). I'll file a bug.

Guys, that's what Marionette is here for. It's not rocket science (otherwise I wouldn't be able to do it). Come to my class at the Design Summit to learn how to do this kind of stuff in no time (shameless plug) :-) Star.mp4 Star.vwx

This is to inform you that there are other snap points within a tight radius of the currently acquired point. You may want to zoom in, or use the snap loupe, to acquire your desired point.

Ingredients for a single cupcake shouldn't be excessive. And IIRC Vectorworks now has photogrammetric visual scanning. I haven't tried it but it's not a bad idea!

Frosting is definitely doable with the Deform Tool. Glazing should be, too. Glazing.mp4

When I Google "cupcake with frosting" I get this: Is that what you want or is it glazing:

I wonder about that. VWX objects are most often filled. Wouldn't those get dragged if the selection marquee was started on top of one?

That's one reason to abandon Autocad. How very inefficient that must be. What happens if you make changes to your project? Vectorworks has sophisticated fills and transparencies almost like a graphic program. In fact Vectorworks' tile fill is much more elegant than the fills options even in Illustrator. And it's more powerful than Autocad in 3D as well! (I only use the 3D part of VWX because 2D workflows are too inefficient to get work done!) I have converted hundreds of users from Autocad to Vectorworks over the past 20 years and not a single one has wanted to go back. Autocad users always tell me "we don't work in 3D. It's too complicated. We only do 2D". Truth be told, Autocad doesn't even have proper 2D. it's all flattened 3D really. I could go on for hours! @Vectorworks Novice give VWX a chance, you will *not* regret it!

@SeanOSkea if you start with a NURBS curve for the path and then use a Working Plane to draw the profile on it is easier to achieve what you want. Make sure to check "Fix Profile" as well. Extrude Along Path.mp4