NickB Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 I have modelled a french caf? style table in VectorWorks 11, and it worked well. It was a relief to work in VW after struggling with Amapi Pro and Maya. However, when I took the drawing to the metalworker he wanted to know how much metal rod he needed to buy to make the base. What I would like is for VW to tell me the length of my various NURBS curves (the paths for my extrusions) along the curve. Can it do this? I can't see the feature anywhere, and interogating the curve only seems to deal with curvature. Please point me in the right direction. Thanks Nick [ 02-22-2005, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: NickB ] Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Biplab Posted February 22, 2005 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted February 22, 2005 In the NURBS curve Properties dialog (not the Object Info Palette), there is a length field that tells you the length. But I think there was a bug in VW11.0 on Mac - and length field may not be showing anything - I may be wrong. On Windows it works. However you can change 3D conversion resolution to very high or high, convert copy to lines on the NURBS curve, unfroup, select all, compose the lines into a polygon and see the perimeter value of the polygon on the object info palette. Quote Link to comment
NickB Posted February 22, 2005 Author Share Posted February 22, 2005 Thanks for the swift reply. If you mean interrogating the curve with the analysis tool then it tells me the percentage of the length along the curve, not an absolute length. I'll check of course, but does the perimeter option work on a non planar curve? Quote Link to comment
NickB Posted February 22, 2005 Author Share Posted February 22, 2005 Thanks, I found the properties dialogue by right clicking the curve, and as you suspected the length does not show (VW 11.0.1 and OS X 10.3.8). This seems to be a duplicate of the OIP except that there the length doesn't even figure, presumably it should though? Quote Link to comment
NickB Posted February 22, 2005 Author Share Posted February 22, 2005 converting to lines, composing etc. only works on a 2D basis. The procedure gives different results depending on which angle you are viewing the NURBS curve from, and so this rules it out for NURBS with double (non-planar) curvature The 3D polygon option also doesn't seem to have a length option. Is there any chance, that this currently slightly annoying bug will be patched? Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Biplab Posted February 22, 2005 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted February 22, 2005 This has been fixed for a later release. Quote Link to comment
NickB Posted February 23, 2005 Author Share Posted February 23, 2005 Biplab, can I just check that it will be a maintenance release rather than a paid upgrade as it would be fixing a feature sold as part of version 11? And any idea when that might be? Quote Link to comment
Kaare Baekgaard Posted February 23, 2005 Share Posted February 23, 2005 =LENGTH(((SEL=TRUE))) in a worksheet seems to do it. Perhaps you should check this with another source before you trust this. Quote Link to comment
NickB Posted February 23, 2005 Author Share Posted February 23, 2005 Thanks Kaare, at first sight this seems to work, I will check more thoroughly later, but it seems like a clean work around. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Andrew Bell@NV Posted February 24, 2005 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted February 24, 2005 I believe the VectorScript HLength() function will also return the length of a nurbs curve. Try the following one line VectorScript: Message('Length:',HLength(FSActLayer)); Quote Link to comment
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