Bridle tool settings

[Stefan V]

Hello,

 

in VWX2025 I could set the bridle settings so that leg 1 always had the same length. At first sight I can only choose minimum and maximum lengths in VWX2026. 

Is there a way I can set it again so the priority is that leg 1 has a specific length ? 

Or the same set of material for that first leg that I can save and easily choose. 

 

Thanks in advance,
Stefan

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

Hello @Stefan V,

 

You should be able to select the same value for Min and Max leg length to get the same behavior as before - fixed leg length. Let me know if this gets the job done.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

[Stefan V]

Thank you Nikolay,

 

It works perfectly for DH or equal bridles. But when I draw a bridle  where leg1 & leg2 have a different length this doesn't seem to work.

Regards,
Stefan

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

On 12/1/2025 at 9:12 AM, Stefan V said:

Thank you Nikolay,

 

It works perfectly for DH or equal bridles. But when I draw a bridle  where leg1 & leg2 have a different length this doesn't seem to work.

Regards,
Stefan

- If you have a fixed leg length you can not have 2 legs with different lengths, because this breaks the constraints. If you do not have any other constraints selected you can have some flexibility about the apex point location that still keeps the leg length constraint to have fixed length.

[Scott C. Parker]

On 11/26/2025 at 6:18 AM, Stefan V said:

Is there a way I can set it again so the priority is that leg 1 has a specific length ?

Play with this setting in the Bridle preferences.

 

[Wout]

Hi All!! 

 

I was experiencing the same problem. 

But i fall into the next one.

The apex height of the bridle seems to be to 'fixed' to the high hook height of a hoist.

Which results in unnecessary Bridle items. while inserting a bridle i would like to see that the apex height moves so an ideal bridle will be created, and the high hook height of the hoist can be moved as well, without pushing the bridle apex up by only changing the high hook height of the hoist. 

Below a screenshot of the problem.

[Scott C. Parker]

8 hours ago, Wout said:

But i fall into the next one.

Please post a sample file so that the collective can take a look. 

[Wout]

Good Morning Scott, Attachted my test file.

 

I think, if we could optimize and automate this bridle tool (which is already pretty far!) everybody will use this instead of calculate it by hand or use another tool.

What i am missing in the tool:

- Shift high hook height automatically so de drop leg wil not be created unneccesary.

- an extra constrain with an preference of basket that will be used as default.

- The tool will created both create 1T and 2T steels in one bridle... while only 1T is needed.

- The problem of to long steels while the apex height could be raised so the bridle will be optimized with the least of items. (this one is the screenshot of my earlier message).

 

 

Bridle Test.vwx

[BRSebbe]

On 12/8/2025 at 8:57 AM, Wout said:

Good Morning Scott, Attachted my test file.

 

I think, if we could optimize and automate this bridle tool (which is already pretty far!) everybody will use this instead of calculate it by hand or use another tool.

What i am missing in the tool:

- Shift high hook height automatically so de drop leg wil not be created unneccesary.

- an extra constrain with an preference of basket that will be used as default.

- The tool will created both create 1T and 2T steels in one bridle... while only 1T is needed.

- The problem of to long steels while the apex height could be raised so the bridle will be optimized with the least of items. (this one is the screenshot of my earlier message).

 

 

Bridle Test.vwx 17.37 MB · 0 downloads

Yes, there needs to be more optimization to make this tool actually usable. 

All of the above and
Apex Angle Constraint, the angle between the legs in the apex of the bridle. 
Set up with only leg constraints, if those values are liberal enough to make a bridle, where the point is so close to a beam that its practically a deadhang, they are also liberal enough to give you 120+ degree bridles, which creates an endless loop of tweaking. This constraint would solve that. 

Access to information about objects connected to the bridle. 
Hoist ID/name
Connected truss/structural members.

Active links in a stac chain!
The engine already calculates the length used of available length, for 4" or 3" Stacs, seems simple enough to divide that by the delta length and give the actual number of used links? Or atleast to find that information easily in a worksheet and to it ourselves. 
For Monobloqs and Shortening clutches, the length value works just fine, but since STACS are most commonly used when doing arena rigging, that creates one more hump. And in this aspect, to easily find the value of how much offset the bridle is from the target X/Y would also be needed. 

[Scott C. Parker]

On 12/8/2025 at 2:57 AM, Wout said:

if we could optimize and automate this bridle tool

Thanks for the file. These are all items we're working on.

[Scott C. Parker]

On 12/11/2025 at 9:39 AM, BRSebbe said:

Active links in a stac chain!

Making this easier is on my list of future improvements. Until then, here's a file with a worksheet to play with. The number of links is calculated using the delta lengths you mentioned. Good idea. Thanks to @Nikolay Zhelyazkov for his help.
Links worksheet.vwx

[Martijn Wingelaar]

@Nikolay Zhelyazkov Hi Nikolay.

I pointed this oud in a Jira post aswell on 13-06-25

It should behave more like in my attached  movies

😃👍 

[hdmcclx]

Jumping on this. 
 

I for the most part love the new bridle tool. It’s infinitely better than the previous version!

 

my 2 questions/requests are to do with the Basket. 
 

1: can we be able to save the parts used for the basket as part of a bridle style? One of my venues uses 1m slings as the basket 95% of the time and saving this in the style would make life even rasiet

 

2: would it be possible to change the wrap configuration of a basket? So for example it could be a standard basket (like it is currently) or it could be choked if using a sling etc. 

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

On 12/23/2025 at 10:56 PM, Martijn Wingelaar said:

@Nikolay Zhelyazkov Hi Nikolay.

I pointed this oud in a Jira post aswell on 13-06-25

It should behave more like in my attached  movies

😃👍 

- @Martijn Wingelaar - is this the Vectorworks Bridle that you have in the recordings? The OIP seems different. Not really sure I get the idea here.

 

On 1/1/2026 at 11:20 PM, hdmcclx said:

Jumping on this. 
 

I for the most part love the new bridle tool. It’s infinitely better than the previous version!

 

my 2 questions/requests are to do with the Basket. 
 

1: can we be able to save the parts used for the basket as part of a bridle style? One of my venues uses 1m slings as the basket 95% of the time and saving this in the style would make life even rasiet

 

2: would it be possible to change the wrap configuration of a basket? So for example it could be a standard basket (like it is currently) or it could be choked if using a sling etc. 

- @hdmcclx

1: Currently this is not possible. However, if your baskets are all 1m long, I think that the auto part building algorithm should be picking the 1m rope always.

 

2: Currently this is not possible, I will add this to our wishlist database for consideration

[jcogdell]

On 12/8/2025 at 8:57 AM, Wout said:

The tool will created both create 1T and 2T steels in one bridle... while only 1T is needed.

You can avoid this issue by creating a couple of bridle part sets, 1 ton and 2 ton for example, and then set the 1 ton set to be used in the bridle parts manager.
 

 

[Rubén Campillo]

Hello, my name is Rubén. I work at a rigging company. This is the first time I post on the forum, although I have been reading it for many years.

@Nikolay Zhelyazkov, what @Martijn Wingelaar is trying to explain to you is how the bridle tool should work. The video shows how the tool at http://www.vectorbridle.com/ works, which is how it should work in Vectorworks.

What is being discussed in this thread is how riggers solve bridle calculations.

Your tool works in a very deficient way, although it has improved in some aspects compared to the previous version. The tool works very differently from the way a rigger would approach the calculation of a 2- or 3-leg bridle. A 4-leg bridle never really works in real life; you would need turnbuckles on three legs and to monitor the loads on each leg, because it is very unlikely that theoretical calculations will be reflected in practice. (This was already pointed out by @Martijn Wingelaar several years ago in a post; he has advised in several posts how the tool should work. You never listened.)

I doubt that any rigger was involved in the development of the tool; you only have to look at the “Create Bridle Assembly Diagram” tool to realize this. How many times has it been discussed on the forum that deck chains are specified by links? And you still give the length. It is truly ridiculous.

The way the tool manages baskets would not work in real life and only makes things more complicated. Normally, you would use a standard basket. For example, I work in an arena that consists of a space frame structure with 140 mm diameter nodes, a catwalk with 75 mm diameter chords, and a 400 mm diameter lattice truss. The software tries to adjust the basket lengths as precisely as possible. But in real life (not the life your programmers see sitting in front of their computers), what would be used is a 5' basket for the space frame and the catwalk, and a 10' basket for the lattice truss.

In my company we have steel slings of 1', 2', 1 m, 4'2", 5', 7'6", 10', 12'6", 15', 20', 30', and 50' in different diameters, so we could adjust the baskets, but that only complicates things.

The usual way to build a bridle is to leave one leg with a fixed length and the rest of the legs with variable lengths. That is, I want one leg with a 5' basket and one leg with a 10' basket—those would be the fixed ones—and the remaining legs are solved based on that. It is true that this way of working can shift the apex by a few millimeters, but in rigging you very rarely need millimetric precision. The videos by @Martijn Wingelaar show how it should be done.

In the 2025 version of the tool it was possible to have one fixed leg; now it is not. I used it in the following way: in the arena mentioned above, I know that on the lattice trusses, with a 10' basket, a 5/8" shackle, and a 1/2" floating shackle, the effective length is 1.2473 m. So if you entered this length +20' in the “Bridle leg length” option, you could have the first leg you drew fixed.

@Nikolay Zhelyazkov, I recommend that you read all the posts written by @Martijn Wingelaar on the forum and analyze http://www.vectorbridle.com/ so you can see how the tool should really work.

[Scott C. Parker]

On 12/23/2025 at 3:56 PM, Martijn Wingelaar said:

I pointed this oud in a Jira post aswell on 13-06-25

Hello @Martijn Wingelaar I've searched Jira and can not find your VB/VE post. Do you have the Jira number?

[Nikolay Zhelyazkov]

16 hours ago, Rubén Campillo said:

Hello, my name is Rubén. I work at a rigging company. This is the first time I post on the forum, although I have been reading it for many years.

@Nikolay Zhelyazkov, what @Martijn Wingelaar is trying to explain to you is how the bridle tool should work. The video shows how the tool at http://www.vectorbridle.com/ works, which is how it should work in Vectorworks.

What is being discussed in this thread is how riggers solve bridle calculations.

Your tool works in a very deficient way, although it has improved in some aspects compared to the previous version. The tool works very differently from the way a rigger would approach the calculation of a 2- or 3-leg bridle. A 4-leg bridle never really works in real life; you would need turnbuckles on three legs and to monitor the loads on each leg, because it is very unlikely that theoretical calculations will be reflected in practice. (This was already pointed out by @Martijn Wingelaar several years ago in a post; he has advised in several posts how the tool should work. You never listened.)

I doubt that any rigger was involved in the development of the tool; you only have to look at the “Create Bridle Assembly Diagram” tool to realize this. How many times has it been discussed on the forum that deck chains are specified by links? And you still give the length. It is truly ridiculous.

The way the tool manages baskets would not work in real life and only makes things more complicated. Normally, you would use a standard basket. For example, I work in an arena that consists of a space frame structure with 140 mm diameter nodes, a catwalk with 75 mm diameter chords, and a 400 mm diameter lattice truss. The software tries to adjust the basket lengths as precisely as possible. But in real life (not the life your programmers see sitting in front of their computers), what would be used is a 5' basket for the space frame and the catwalk, and a 10' basket for the lattice truss.

In my company we have steel slings of 1', 2', 1 m, 4'2", 5', 7'6", 10', 12'6", 15', 20', 30', and 50' in different diameters, so we could adjust the baskets, but that only complicates things.

The usual way to build a bridle is to leave one leg with a fixed length and the rest of the legs with variable lengths. That is, I want one leg with a 5' basket and one leg with a 10' basket—those would be the fixed ones—and the remaining legs are solved based on that. It is true that this way of working can shift the apex by a few millimeters, but in rigging you very rarely need millimetric precision. The videos by @Martijn Wingelaar show how it should be done.

In the 2025 version of the tool it was possible to have one fixed leg; now it is not. I used it in the following way: in the arena mentioned above, I know that on the lattice trusses, with a 10' basket, a 5/8" shackle, and a 1/2" floating shackle, the effective length is 1.2473 m. So if you entered this length +20' in the “Bridle leg length” option, you could have the first leg you drew fixed.

@Nikolay Zhelyazkov, I recommend that you read all the posts written by @Martijn Wingelaar on the forum and analyze http://www.vectorbridle.com/ so you can see how the tool should really work.

Hello @Rubén Campillo,

 

Thanks for your feedback! As you have noted in the latest versions we are working on improving the bridle tool and we will continue to do so in the future versions. Hearing your feedback here helps us identify which are the areas that we should work on so it is really valuable to have it.

 

Best Regards,

Nikolay Zhelyazkov

[jcogdell]

18 hours ago, Rubén Campillo said:

A 4-leg bridle never really works in real life; you would need turnbuckles on three legs and to monitor the loads on each leg, because it is very unlikely that theoretical calculations will be reflected in practice.

I fully agree, it was very rare to use anything other than a 2 leg bridle back when I was still working on events. The original bridle/braceworks developer added these modes at the direct request of a large client.
 

18 hours ago, Rubén Campillo said:

I doubt that any rigger was involved in the development of the tool; you only have to look at the “Create Bridle Assembly Diagram” tool to realize this. How many times has it been discussed on the forum that deck chains are specified by links? And you still give the length. It is truly ridiculous.

Bridle assembly diagrams were developed based on feedback/requests received by the original developer. Can they be improved upon? definitely!
We have a list of fixes and improvements that we want to make for all parts of the bridle tools, which we have been steadily working through in the last couple of releases since replacing the original third party developer.

 

18 hours ago, Rubén Campillo said:

The usual way to build a bridle is to leave one leg with a fixed length and the rest of the legs with variable lengths.

In my own experience this is not universal and largely depends on where in the world you are working. That being said the single most common feedback request about bridle configuration in our system was the request to restrict chains to a single leg, which is why it was part of the most recent round of improvements. 
Adding more options to control over which legs get chains is a good idea and I'll add it to our list of improvements.
 

 

18 hours ago, Rubén Campillo said:

It is true that this way of working can shift the apex by a few millimeters, 

This is the heart of the problem. The bridle dimensions including the apex position can't currently be changed by changing the bridle steel configuration, which logically doesn't make sense but its how the original developer designed the feature. 
Changing this requires rebuilding large parts of the feature and we have had to split this process into multiple steps.
Most of the drawing related issues were dealt with in the 24 and 25 releases. The parts manager, configuration dialogue and related workflow was our target for this release. Next step is refine this, based on your and other users feedback. Once that's done then we can move onto reworking the back end to address how changing the configuration should affect the bridle leg dimensions and apex height.

 

 

 

 

[jcogdell]

18 hours ago, Rubén Campillo said:

The way the tool manages baskets would not work in real life and only makes things more complicated. Normally, you would use a standard basket. For example, I work in an arena that consists of a space frame structure with 140 mm diameter nodes, a catwalk with 75 mm diameter chords, and a 400 mm diameter lattice truss. The software tries to adjust the basket lengths as precisely as possible. But in real life (not the life your programmers see sitting in front of their computers), what would be used is a 5' basket for the space frame and the catwalk, and a 10' basket for the lattice truss.

Would being able to define standard basket configurations in the bridle tool settings/styles address this for you?

[Rubén Campillo]

Hola Nikolay Zhelyazkov, jcogdell . Gracias por tus respuestas.

 

Hace 7 horas, jcogdell dijo:

Los diagramas de ensamblaje de novias se desarrollaron a partir de los comentarios y solicitudes del desarrollador original. ¿Se pueden mejorar? ¡Por supuesto!
Tenemos una lista de correcciones y mejoras que queremos implementar en todas las partes de las herramientas de novias, en las que hemos estado trabajando constantemente en las dos últimas versiones desde que reemplazamos al desarrollador externo original.

 

 

Creo que la mejor manera de abordar este desafío es que el diagrama se asemeje a cómo se marca el piso en un evento.

Hace 7 horas, jcogdell dijo:

En mi experiencia, esto no es universal y depende en gran medida del lugar del mundo en el que se trabaja. Dicho esto, la solicitud de comentarios más frecuente sobre la configuración de las novias en nuestro sistema fue la de restringir las cadenas a una sola rama, por lo que formó parte de la última ronda de mejoras. 
Añadir más opciones para controlar qué ramas reciben cadenas es una buena idea y la agregaré a nuestra lista de mejoras
.

Tienes razón, esto no es universal. Para mí, tener longitudes variables en todas las patas de una novia solo tiene sentido cuando el lugar tiene una altura muy ajustada o cuando se necesita mayor precisión. Aunque en la mayoría de los casos no se trabaja al milímetro en el aparato.

Hace 7 horas, jcogdell dijo:

Este es el núcleo del problema. Las dimensiones de la novia, incluida la posición del vértice, no se pueden modificar actualmente modificando la configuración del acero de la novia, lo cual, lógicamente, no tiene sentido, pero así es como el desarrollador original diseñó la función. 
Cambiar esto requiere reconstruir gran parte de la función y hemos tenido que dividir este proceso en varios pasos.
La mayoría de los problemas relacionados con el dibujo se solucionaron en las versiones 24 y 25. El administrador de piezas, el diálogo de configuración y el flujo de trabajo relacionado eran nuestro objetivo para esta versión. El siguiente paso es perfeccionarlo, basándonos en sus comentarios y los de otros usuarios. Una vez hecho esto, podemos proceder a rediseñar el backend para determinar cómo el cambio de configuración debería afectar las dimensiones de las patas de la novia y la altura del vértice.
 

Tienes razón. Este es el componente de la herramienta que actualmente no funciona como se esperaba. Francamente, habría priorizado solucionar este problema primero. No habría asignado recursos para implementar la representación gráfica de la cesta. Sin embargo, es solo mi opinión. Entiendo que recibes numerosas solicitudes de funcionalidades y, por lo tanto, debes priorizar las tareas de desarrollo en consecuencia.

Hace 7 horas, jcogdell dijo:

¿Poder definir configuraciones de cesta estándar en los ajustes/estilos de la herramienta de novia solucionaría este problema para usted?

Sería una mejora significativa si esta opción se incorporara al conjunto de funciones.

[Rubén Campillo]

On 11/12/2025 at 15:39, BRSebbe said:

Eslabones activos en una cadena de stac!

Hello BRSebbe. Although this is not the optimal method and requires initial manual preparation, my workaround consists of generating individual bridle symbols for each STAC Chain link configuration (1-link, 2-link, … up to 16-link). Creating and editing these symbols took approximately a couple of hours. Given that all bridles produced by the tool require subsequent verification, I adjust them to match the correct configuration. This approach allows the bridle to accurately display the corresponding number of links.

 

[Scott C. Parker]

AI translation of @Rubén Campillo's last post:

 

Hello Nikolay Zhelyazkov and jcogdell. Thank you for your replies.

8 hours ago, jcogdell said:
The bridle assembly diagrams were developed based on feedback and requests from the original developer. Can they be improved? Of course!
We have a list of fixes and improvements that we want to implement across all parts of the bridle tools, and we’ve been working on these constantly through the last two releases since we replaced the original external developer.

I think the best way to approach this challenge is for the diagram to resemble how the floor is marked at an event.

8 hours ago, jcogdell said:
In my experience, this is not universal and depends heavily on where in the world you work. That said, the most frequent feedback request about bridle configurations in our system was to restrict chains to a single leg, so that became part of the latest round of improvements.
Adding more options to control which legs have chains is a good idea, and I’ll add it to our list of enhancements.

You’re right, this isn’t universal. For me, having variable lengths in all the legs of a bridle only makes sense when the venue has a very tight height or when greater precision is required. Although in most cases, equipment isn’t worked on to the millimeter.

8 hours ago, jcogdell said:
This is the core of the issue. The dimensions of the bridle, including the vertex position, currently can’t be modified by changing the bridle steel settings, which logically doesn’t make sense, but that’s how the original developer designed the feature.
Changing this requires rebuilding much of the function, and we’ve had to divide that process into multiple steps.
Most drawing-related issues were fixed in versions 24 and 25. The parts manager, configuration dialog, and related workflow were our target for this version. The next step is to refine it based on your feedback and that of other users. Once that’s done, we can move on to redesigning the backend so that changing the settings actually affects the bridle leg dimensions and the vertex height.

You’re right. This is the component of the tool that currently doesn’t work as expected. Frankly, I would have prioritized fixing this problem first. I wouldn’t have allocated resources to implementing the graphic representation of the basket. But that’s just my opinion. I understand that you receive numerous feature requests and therefore must prioritize development tasks accordingly.

8 hours ago, jcogdell said:
Would being able to define standard basket configurations in the bridle tool’s settings/styles solve this problem for you?
It would be a significant improvement if this option were added to the feature set.

[Martijn Wingelaar]

On 1/7/2026 at 9:10 PM, Scott C. Parker said:

Hello @Martijn Wingelaar I've searched Jira and can not find your VB/VE post. Do you have the Jira number?

VE-107598

VE-104957

VE-104430

VE-106098

[jcogdell]

Thanks @Martijn Wingelaar