Constraints: Automatically add with line

[spettitt]

Hello,

 

As part of trying to use Vectorworks as a central design platform, it would be great to be able to have some ability to draw conceptual diagrams as part of a design pack.

 

You may know the popular draw.io platform, where lines are constrained to the objects they are connected to, so you can move and object and the line moves as well (ala ConnectCAD circuits, but less formal and more fluid). We use this for communicating design intent of lots of things - network topology among them.

 

 

 

I can replicate this in Vectorworks:

- Make a symbol with some graphics and some loci

- Draw a line

- Add a coincident constraint from each end of the line to the loci on each rectangle

- Moving either rectangle now automatically moves the line as well

 

My question: how can I get the green coincident constraint to be inserted automatically if I click the line directly from loci > loci?

 

If this isn't possible, I'll get it on the wishlist - a Mode for the Line tool of 'auto-insert coincident constraints' - where clicking on a loci with the line tool (or similar tools) will auto insert a constraint.

 

 

Edited July 21, 2023 by spettitt

[markdd]

Great idea. I guess a non-constrained dimension would do it if you made a new style with all the styling and markers removed……

 

I just tried and it works fine but you need to remove the value afterward.

 

It looks like it would be relatively easy to create a new mode of the tool as the functionality already exists. I guess the real challenge would be to get it to work on NURBS curves in 3D.

[Pat Stanford]

Take a look at adding the Flowchart Node and Flowchart Link tools to your workspace.  They offer this functionality.

 

[spettitt]

Thanks Pat - those tools seemed pretty buried! They do pretty much all of what I want, though they introduce a few other limitations/issues, but ostensibly, that's solved it.

 

Cheers

[Pat Stanford]

Yes, they are buried and mostly unknown.  I don't even remember when I found out about them. And I had to go looking for them in the Workspace Editor as I didn't have them installed and couldn't remember what they were called.

 

Hope they are useful.