Align and Distribute Fixtures along a curved Lighting Pipe

[KinlossKid]

I have created a curved lighting pipe and placed a number of fixtures on it. I would like to distribute them evenly across the pipe. 

 

This is easy to do with a straight pipe or truss, but I cannot figure out how to get it to follow the arc. 

 

Any thoughts? TIA.

[JBenghiat]

If you're placing lights from scratch, you can use duplicate array to evenly space units around an arc. Otherwise, there's not really a command to distribute objects around an arc.

 

Usually, I'll use a curved Lighting Pipe, and snap to tick marks to get even spacing.

[markdd]

There is no way to directly do this. However, it is possible to do something similar using the Duplicate Along Path Command.
 

The workflow would be this:

• Right click on the lighting pipe.
• Select Edit path
• Copy the path object that is in the edit window that opens
• Exit the edit window
• Paste the path directly on top of the Lighting Pipe you wish to duplicate your lighting devices along.
• Select a single Lighting Device and the pasted path object.
• Run the Duplicate Along Path command from the Edit menu.

(The Duplicate along Path command takes a few tries to get right at first, but is a cynch once you get the hang of it.)

 

The Lighting Devices will be arrayed along the pasted path. Delete the pasted path object. You may have to directly attach the Lighting Devices to the Lighting Pipe using the Attach Loads tool or the Right Click Attach Loads command.

 

@Sam Jones  has a command in his AutoPlot suite of Lighting plug-ins that will move a distribution of lighting devices directly to a Path object which might also fit the bill.

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by markdd

[KinlossKid]

I've been playing around with Duplicate Along Path, but I figured there MUST be a similar tool for a lighting pipe. I think this option will work just fine for my present situation.

 

Thanks to you both!