Planters

[rowbear97]

I've been working on this with some help from others on this forum and wanted to post my progress and seek some help on solving a couple of nagging issues.

One when I change the height of the box it moves up from the ground plane. Now when I was in Chicago just yesterday Sarah suggested using the node "Set PRefID To Ground". I tried this and continue to get the same result. The other thing I'm trying to do is have the attached records report the entered values so I can build a work sheet that will allow us to calculate volume for each planter even as you change the sizes. Lastly, again perhaps I missed something during the one on one with Sarah but I want this to be a symbol. When I take the marionette object and convert it to a symbol it shows up as one in the resource browser but when I drop that symbol into the drawing it shows as a marionette object.

Please see the this file and let me know if anyone has any ideas on how to address these items.

[Marissa Farrell]

Hi Robert!

I have answers for all of your questions!

For your issue with the height, this happens because of the way you're generating your geometry. I've attached a simple file, "Simple Box", to show you a better way to produce this box and assure that it always gains its height upwards instead of downwards.

With your records, you're very close. Attach whatever value you want to be the values for "wide" and "high" to your "Set Record Field" node in the "fldValue" port. I'm assuming you want Width and Height to be reported here, so simply wire those nodes to the respective ports.

As for the symbols, if you want all of your planters to be the same size, then you would create the symbol just like any other symbol. In the Create Symbol dialog box, uncheck the "Convert to Plug-In Object" checkbox.

If you're hoping to have many planters of different sizes, I would leave the box checked, however, as you've noted, when you drop them in, they will not be symbols. They will be Marionette objects.

Please let me know if you have any questions/need any clarification.

Edited April 28, 2016 by MarissaF

[AlanW]

Also this one of Marissa's post will help with the records hopefully.

[rowbear97]

Thanks Alan and Marissa on your contributions to this effort. I've incorporated the two different items and have a marionette that works exactly as one would expect. Now my challenge is that the values that are being added to the worksheet are no longer dimensions, giving me feet and inches I'm getting a text.

This wouldn't be an issue if in the worksheet I could change the cell from text to a number but for some reason I can't do that. The idea in the worksheet is that the user will get the volume, usually given in terms of yards for us landscape industry folks but also required to give cu.ft. for our structural engineer friends to be able to calculate loads. Additionally we would like to use the worksheet as a material schedule showing the dimensions of the planters length, width, and height.

Again thanks in advance and I look forward to seeing what comes next. You can download the file here. Oh and as a side note. This one marionette object is already over 26 megs. Is there a pending solution for the bloated size?

[AlanW]

Hi,

If you purge it you can get it down to 10,000kb

[AlanW]

Hi, Just looking at Marissa's rectangle node, there is one that Sarah added that sets the centre of the rectangle so you don't have to move the origin which is bottom left of the rectangle.

Simplifies the Network.

HTH

[rowbear97]

Alan,

Thanks so much for the assistance. Perhaps I can return the assistance some day.

[AlanW]

Edited May 4, 2016 by Alan Woodwell