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EAP with a non destructive path


Bas Vellekoop

Question

At the moment an EAP converts the 2d drawn path into a nurbs-curve.

If that path is for example a rounded rectangle with a wrong radius on the corners you have to go into the object and redraw the rounded rectangel, not the most efficient way.

Two wishes:

1 - It would be great if planar wasn't converted to a nurbs curve.

Editing would be much faster this way.

2 - It would be great if the planar object for the path of the EAP were still editable in the OIP of the EAP.

Then it would be very easy to change the radius from a circle or the size of a rectangle without having to go in the EAP and redraw the path.

Edited by Bas Vellekoop
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Just to clarify: I have also split this into:

"Allow Symbols to be used as the Path and Profile of EAPs"

"Automatically update EAPs with a symbol as Path or Profile"

"Allow the path of an EAP to remain a Polygon or Polyline when the EAP edited" (I think even if we NEED to convert it to NURBS to do the math on it during the EAP operation, it could be made to revert temporarily back into a polygon/polyline when you edit that component of the EAP for easier editing)

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1) Yes. I believe everything is being converted into a NURBS, even a 3D polygon.

2) This has to do with 2 things:

- Not all planar objects are PATH based, for instance a rectangle.

- The EAP default behavior just turns anything into a NURBS, but there is a workaround:

Create your own object that creates internally an EAP just by passing the path and the profile. This way, you have more control of your path :)

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  • Marionette Maven

An alternative, although not a true fix:

A Marionette Object that uses control geometry to define the path!

This network pulls in 'Symbol-1' as it's profile and allows a user to define a path.

To do this:

1) Right click on the Marionette Object (EAP)

2) Select 'Edit Control Geometry'

3) You can either modify the polyline I have there, or delete that and draw something completely different. Each time you go into the control geometry it will still be of whatever type you drew it in initially (i.e. will not convert to NURBS, because that is done in the Marionette Script)

To see the script involved, go all the way back out to the main drawing screen, right click on the Marionette object, and select 'Edit Script'

Let me know if you have any questions.

Marissa

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1 - It would be great if planar wasn't converted to a nurbs curve.

Editing would be much faster this way.

2 - It would be great if the planar object for the path of the EAP were still editable in the OIP of the EAP.

Then it would be very easy to change the radius from a circle or the size of a rectangle without having to go in the EAP and redraw the path.

+100

Recently I have run into this thing becoming a major annoyance when updating EAP objects, it being converted to NURBS curves made it more difficult than it should have been.

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  • Marionette Maven
Ha nice!

One but: if you change the symbol the EAP doesn't change automatically, it seems that you have to edit the control geometry as well to see the changes made to Symbol-1

Yes, you're right. The script that defines the geometry will only be updated if you alter it in someway - a way that you could "trick" it is to give it some sort of parametric control in the OIP that you could alter (that wouldn't actually change anything) in order to reset the object.

I'll look into this and let you know if I find a sneaky solution!

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If it would be possible to make a button in the OIP with marionette that's called 'update'. But I don't know of these kind of things are possible?

For a 'little' script this fine I think, but for a real workflow with different people working on the same project this is really not the best solution.

Forgetting to update the EAP can become a real problem.

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  • Marionette Maven

The attached file has a checkbox value in the OIP that will force a redraw with the updated symbol.

In order to do this, I modified the "String" node in the script (it is named 'Symbol' to appear in the OIP)

I'll try to think of a better way to implement the updating, but for now, this seems to work quite well!

Let me know what you think.

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  • Marionette Maven

Keep in mind:

All of this flattery is the only reason I keep posting ;)

But seriously, thank you both (and all) for your positive (and critical) input on what I present to you.

It also gives me much more entertainment during the work day, which currently mostly consists of creating new nodes and trying to come up with something neat to create in a network and share. You all inspire me to solve your problems and requests - so keep them coming!

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On 19/12/2015 at 10:30 AM, Bas Vellekoop said:

Ha nice!

One but: if you change the symbol the EAP doesn't change automatically, it seems that you have to edit the control geometry as well to see the changes made to Symbol-1

Hi, Maybe things have moved along a bit since then. All yo need to do is change the symbol name in the OIP and the change is instant. See attached. There are a number of symbols in the Resource Browser and all yo need to do is select the crown moulding which is a marionette object and change the symbol name. 
HTH
If you want to look at a video on using this Marionette object for a variety of uses have a look at - Videos on my channel "Alan Woodwell" youtube.

If you would like this file so you can try out your own see attached, follow the principles in the video.

Crown Mouldings EA side_003 v2017.vwx

 

Capture.JPG

 

Crown Mouldings EA side_003 v2016 .vwx

Edited by Alan Woodwell
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9 minutes ago, JimW said:

Just to clarify: I have also split this into:

"Allow Symbols to be used as the Path and Profile of EAPs"

"Automatically update EAPs with a symbol as Path or Profile"

"Allow the path of an EAP to remain a Polygon or Polyline when the EAP edited" (I think even if we NEED to convert it to NURBS to do the math on it during the EAP operation, it could be made to revert temporarily back into a polygon/polyline when you edit that component of the EAP for easier editing)

@Jimglad to see you got it split up a little, as each on their own are welcome improvements to have, if this makes it more likely that at least one of these will make it than I'm all for splitting up requests.

The 3rd one would be very useful to have. Would this also mean that it could be possible to adjust all radii of a polygon in one go if the request for that (listed elsewhere) would also be implemented or would it be more about moving the points of a path to be a bit easier than with NURBS paths?

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