Distribute Along Path

[James Russell]

Hi all,

 

Before moving forwards this discussion relates to distribute along path, not duplicate along path.

 

I have an example project for discussion;

 

I have 308 unique 3D object (they are giant letters) which are currently in a tidy line (almost as though they were typed out, converted to polygons and then extruded...).

 

I need to distribute these along a NURBS curve which undulates over some hills. It would be ideal if these remain in the same order they are currently, are evenly spaced and followed the NURBS curve's tangents for orientation.

 

Thoughts?

 

Hope you're all well.

 

J

[Peter Neufeld]

Dear James,

There's no tool that can do that in Vectorworks but there is a workaround.

If you know how far apart each object should be, then place them that distance part. They can be grouped if need be.

Then draw the NURBS surface and run the Surface Array command.

 

Cheers,

Peter

Edited September 14, 2017 by Peter Neufeld
Another typo

[Kevin McAllister]

6 hours ago, Peter Neufeld said:

Dear James,

There's no tool that can do that in Vectorworks but there is a workaround.

If you know how far apart each object should be, then place them that distance part. They can be grouped if need be.

Then draw the NURBS surface and run the Surface Array command.

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

This is a cool solution Peter!

 

I wonder if there might be a Marionette solution to this too..... it seems like a trial candidate for the new Marionette command menu  ( @Marissa Farrellany thoughts on the original question? )

 

Kevin

 

[Marissa Farrell]

Totally possible, as long as the objects being distributed are 3D. Moving planar objects around with Marionette has been my worst enemy lately.

Only itty bitty issue is there's a bug with using selected objects in Marionette Menu Commands right now where it counts more objects than you actually have selected, which is messing up the divisions.

I'm trying to get around the bug to share what I have going on (and good news is that in more recent stuff, it looks like the issue has been taken care of, just not available to you, yet...)

 

Still working on the orientation part, but here's a sneak peek while I get this figured out...

 

The menu command (when ready and available and ***bugless***) will require a selection of exactly one NURBS curve and then the 3D objects you want to distribute along it.

It will count how many objects you have selected for distribution and find points on the NURBS at equal divisions and move the objects to their appropriate position in 3D space.

 

Sorry for making you wait for the final product, but hopefully knowing it's on its way will help out  

 

[Kevin McAllister]

3 hours ago, Marissa Farrell said:

Moving planar objects around with Marionette has been my worst enemy lately.

Lol, planar objects are generally like that even without Marionette 

 

3 hours ago, Marissa Farrell said:

 

This is super awesome! You're always doing such cool stuff....

 

Kevin

[AlanW]

Hi, I may not understand the problem but this network distributed symbols along a path at right angles to the path.

Untitled1.vwx

[Kevin McAllister]

2 hours ago, Alan Woodwell said:

Hi, I may not understand the problem but this network distributed symbols along a path at right angles to the path.

 

Alan, I think the desire is to distribute a series of different objects along a path while keeping their order instead of distributing copies of the same object along a path....

Kevin

 

[AlanW]

Ok thanks thats feasible using a sequence or range node to select the nesxt item or symbol rather than the same

[Marissa Farrell]

Hey Alan,

2018 introduced Marionette Menu Commands which can actually streamline a lot of the stuff you're thinking about. Not sure if you've gotten your hands on it yet, but just wanted to point out that we have a new workflow for stuff like this!

I'm hoping to get more examples posted, but I did get one up on the Marionette Gallery that you can take a look at.

 

 

[AlanW]

Hi, Thanks for this. Haven't recieved our AUS/NZ version yet, usually follows a few weeks after the other release. 

[James Russell]

Thanks all for the great replies!

 

@Peter NeufeldI really like this. Surface Array is one of those strange beasts that I often overlook in everyday (or in this case not so everyday) tasks, much like the project tool also.

 

@Marissa FarrellYou tease, haha! I'll have to put my Marionette hat on and dive back in now... Seriously though cool stuff.

 

I'll be sure to place a shot from the completed file here at some stage in a few weeks when I get some time to render. I'm mid-way through a script which I started last week prior to this, if it works I'll add it here for future browsing too.

 

 J

[Ema Gia]

Hello, 

how can I distribute the yellow dots along the arc? tried to use Surface array but found it quite complicated.. 

Thanks for your help!