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Circular array in 3d view


AlanButt

Question

Has Vectorworks ever upgraded its Duplicate in Circular Array tool so that it works in 3D views other than Top/Plan?

 

I wish use VW to create crystal models that obey the rules of crystallography by rotating objects about 3D axes but in my version of VW this function only happens in top plan view. As far as I can see this basic function has not ever been upgraded?

 

To explain further by example, consider the body diagonal of cube (top, front, left to rear, bottom, right). This line (axis in my world) is at of complex angle to the three drawing (x, y, z) plans. If I place some atoms (spheres) some distance from this axis I want to be able the use the rules of symmetry to create the other instances of them in the 3D world but VW seems to have never considered such a construction. Does anyone know if VW has ever improved on this (semingly) simple function.

 

AlanButt

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Thank you both for your replies. I've tried what you said but for me the (Set) Circle Centre Point: still has (At) Next Mouse Click greyed out (unlike Pat's graphic).

 

For the object I'm trying to build might be able to work with all my duplicates being around the origin but it's could be a real limitation.

 

I'm stuck on VW 2015 running on a 12 year old Mac! but if the tools arrived later I may need to subscribe which is big ask for an amateur.

 

For the record I'm trying to create what I'm calling A Global Projector. Forty-eight tiny projectors sit inside a blown up sphere to tile for a full back projection spherical image. The tile geometry is based on the various symmetry axes of a cube. 

 

AlanButt

 

 

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10 hours ago, AlanButt said:

Global Projector. Forty-eight tiny projectors sit inside a blown up sphere to tile for a full back projection spherical image.

What you are trying to do likely falls out of the normal methodologies VW's avails, but should be doable. Again though,  more clarity on your problem.

 

Have a look at this video below of a spherical set of planar extrusions, which could be projectors.  Is this something like what you are trying to achieve.

 

This VW model could be done in 2015.  It was just standard 3D tools.

 

 

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Wow, what pretty things! Is it complex to explain how they were made?

 

I've tried using the working plane method and succeeded but I'm not quite sure how the working plane got it's centre.

 

I'd really like to get Next Mouse Click not greyed out. Could it be somewhere in Preferences.

 

As to my spherical geometry thingy each tile is a projection of a rhombus onto the sphere. The basic shape comes from a rhombic dodecahedron but the vertices of this object, with flat faces, do not fall on a sphere. But spherically curved faces will. Each spheroidal face is further divided into four smaller rhombuses giving the 48-face perfect tile to cover the sphere. Now make each of these faces a projection screen with a TINY projector behind it and you have what I'm calling the Almandine Global Projector. (Almandine is a garnet mineral that forms rhombic dodecahedrons that was my inspiration)

 

Spend a couple of million $ and you've got something that might be cool.   .... or not.

 

I'll try drawing this with your hints.

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Sorry, that's a pentagonal dodecahedron. I'm guessing that VW can create that automatically (as a Platonic solid) but if you made it from scratch I'm VERY impressed.

 

The rhombic dodecahedron with planar faces is not a Platonic solid but does have simpler geometry with each vertex falling either on a 3-fold axis or a 4-fold axis of rotational symmetry.

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Virtual Environs,

 

With your assistance I have managed to create a Rhombic Dodecahedron!

 

I'll export something soon but I just wanted to say thanks and that I still can't get Circular Array to do quite what I want. Things seem to find a totally weird axes to rotate around even though I've centred my object at 0,0,0 and done the same with the various working planes I used.

 

Managed a work around using Rotate 3D and copying and pasting back the original shape.

 

But thanks again and sometime soon I'll explain the whole device to you.

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@AlanButt  Stange as this may sound....I think I know what you are trying to do.  After going back and reading again, it seemed clearer as to why you were asking about working planes.  I did not use working planes to create this.

 

Below is a short video showing the 12 Sided Rhombus project out onto a sphere so the elements are curves.  I did not break them again into four parts and I coloured a few.

 

Is this what you are looking to do?

 

 

 

Edited by VIRTUALENVIRONS
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