Symbol with different appearences

[Peter Z]

Hi, I'm sure this was asked befre, but it's hard for me to find a right search term.

 

I was wondering, if it is possible to have a symbol or intelligent object that can change it's appearence via dropdown list or similar.

I'm glancing over to the other well known CAD software, where you have the abilitiy to create a block that stores different objects inside and then change them via drop down list.

 

So for example I would like to have a tv symbol, that can change between different sizes and models.

[bcd]

The simplest solution is to use the Television tool in Spotlight.

Some other strategies to achieve what you want within Symbols would be to use classes/ level of detail/ Marionette.

[Pat Stanford]

Depending on how sophisticated you want to get in creating these, VW can use Classes inside a symbol for different appearances. That would be the simplest way, but probably not a good solution to your TV problem.

 

The next step up in complexity would be a Marionette object. This is a graphical programming language where you place tiles and connect them with wires. By naming parameters you can get them to display in the OIP and change them there which can change the appearance to whatever you want.

 

Then comes Vectorscript/Python Plug-in Objects.  More powerful than Marionette, but also requires full on programming in either a Pascal like language or Python and a fairly sophisticated knowledge of how VW works.

 

If those are not powerful enough, you can download the SDK (Software Development Kit) and use the full power of C at the lowest level of VW to accomplish what you need.  This is probably overkill for your TV problem.

 

 

[zoomer]

"Dynamic Blocks" ?

 

In VW usually only the Plug In Objects like Walls, Windows, Doors, ...

or basic Objects like Rectangles or Extrudes are parametric and

have a "history" or are parametric.

Maybe, as already said there are suitable parametric Objects in the

pot Light VW version (?)

 

Maybe not what you want,

but in VW it would be easy to replace a Symbol (Block) of a TV by another one.

 

I think a usual VW workflow would be to enter Edit Mode and adapt the components

of that geometry.

[mjm]

Pretty much daily in my use, I love the Modify…Convert…Replace with Symbol… option. Means I can replace anything with whichever symbol I want.