Placing lighting devices on a plot

[pscbimmer]

Is there any way to put one light device a certain distance from the other by typing the exact distance in. For example if I have one light device 10 Feet from the end of the pipe it is on, can I put another exacly 8 Feet 3 Inches away. The way I am currently doing it is by using the smart points, but it is not very accurate. I put the cursor on the center of the light device then drag it until I see the right distance in the Object Length box, then I place the other light device there. The problem with that is that the measurement is usually in decmil form and never exactly shows 8' or 8'51/2". It shows decimls like 8'.566", or 5'2.378". The other problem is that the smart point never stays in the center of the light device I am measuring from, so that makes it inaccurate as well. So i was wondering if there was a simple way to insert lighting devices at exact distances?

[kmoore1]

quote:

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Originally posted by pscbimmer:

Is there any way to put one light device a certain distance from the other by typing the exact distance in.

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If you turn off the vectorworks preference for offset duplicates this becomes extremely easy. Select a fixture. Hit Ctrl-D do duplicate in place. hit Ctrl-M to move the fixture. Type in your x and y offsets. Voila.

You can do the same thing through the object info palette by looking at the x and y coordinates of a lighting fixture and entering similar coordinates for your other fixture.

i.e. I have a unit at (15'8", 7'11.5") and I want another fixture 8' to the left of this one on the same pipe. I'll insert the other instrument somewhere kind of close and then go to the Object info palette and type in (15'8" - 8') for the X Coordinate and 7'11.5" for the Y coordinate. Vectorworks will do the math for you in any of the numeric fields. You can use this trick to move an instrument a fixed distance. Select the X coordinate field and type in + 3' to move the instrument 3 feet to the right.

HTH

[Jim_Allen]

If you are placing the same type of instrument you can go to Edit" "duplicate array". Set to 1 instrument and specify the distance you want it away from the orginal instrument.

Jim

[Jim_Allen]

And it it isn't the same type you can do the above then go and replace it with the type of instrument you want. I don't know if this any faster than Kevin's way??