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Distribute 3D Symbol Along 3D Path?


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Why does Vectorworks Company, Incorporated, esteemed member of the Nemetschek Group, bother with things like Marionette if Tech Support doesn't support it and if no one's interested in sitting down and saying "hey, let's make network nodes and the wires that connect them both either World Scale or Page Scale" (or whatever it would take to prevent Marionette objects saved as resources from so frequently and catastrophically farting when imported into files)???  VWIS116

 

I saved the above as a resource in my Marionette Library.  Great.

 

Imported it into a file: fart.  There were no wires in the network.  Fine, created at 1:48, imported to a 1:120 design layer.  My mistake.

 

VW Workaround 698,839: Create dedicated 1:48 design layer for sole purpose of importing Marionette objects.  Looks good.  Great.

 

Placed on 1:120 design layer from resource manager.  Fart.

 

VW Workaround 698,872: Copy Marionette object from its dedicated design layer to the 1:120 layer.  Looks good.  

 

Oops, nope: can't double click on the Marionette object and manipulate its NURBS curve control geometry.  Huh??  Turns out the control geometry is a polyline - something I did?  Maybe, having been driven batty by Vectorworks, it's definitely possible...

 

Marionette has been around for, what, five years?  Shouldn't it be reasonably stable by now?  Or, as a once new feature, is it now just old & forgotten news?

 

Sorry but, yeah, I'm a little frustrated with the whole Vectorworks/Marionette experience...

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Everything you write is well described!

I think the following decision has to be made by the developers:
Should we stop Marionette and integrate the great possibilities of Grashopper into Vectorworks, or should we even enable both.
or:
let's stay with Marionette and improve the possibilities of Marionette through massive revisions and a quick removal of all known bugs.

Although I have been working intensively with Marionette for 5 years now, with every major project I quickly come to limits of Marionette (or mine 🙂 ).
Since I can only write very rudimentary missing nodes with Phyton and certainly cannot fix bugs, I am constantly dependent on python cracks, who might want to help me with this. Or I have to look for complex alternative strategies to bypass known bugs and limitations with the existing nodes. 

It's all a shame, because I'm still very enthusiastic about the theoretical possibilities of Marionette.

Regards M.Graf   

(sorry - "google Translate")

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14 minutes ago, m.graf said:

 

It's all a shame, because I'm still very enthusiastic about the theoretical possibilities of Marionette.

 

I feel exactly the same way!  And the same could be said about Vectorworks itself, as well.  It feels like the fantastic yet unrealized potential of Vectorworks just keeps slipping further and further away with each passing year.

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hi AlanW

Thank you for the example, it contains the same "detour" symbols to be placed that I had shown.

The symbol node would be much easier if the move Z part were done in the Symbolnode itself and the user could place the symbol with 2D or 3D coordinates.

(And there are a lot of nodes that a revision would do well)

 

1124941770_Bildschirmfoto2021-03-21um09_19_09.thumb.png.f4478d8bdabc824100e03ccacd079b72.png

 

But I think the main problem for users is, that there are too many examples in the forum that cannot be run in Vectorworks 2021:

- <ImageProcessing> "old Phytonlink" and with "new Link" leads to a memory overflow when used several times
- <Kitchen Shelf> - opening and closing the wrapper generates an error message.

etc ...

Many of the "simple nodes" used in the good examples are no longer the "original nodes" or do not exist at all in the standard installation!

 

My constructive suggestion:

Please include at least the very good new nodes e.g. <enhanced Rectangle> in the standard installation,

build a new structure for the Marionette Examples:

"tested examples" that can be run in the current Vectorworks version (e.g. 2021SP2)"

and

"older examples" that cannot run or have not yet been adapted".

This would save users a lot of frustration.

 

regards M.Graf 

 

(Sorry - "Google translator")

Edited by m.graf
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Hi @AlanW, thanks for the Festoon Strings; definitely some good reverse-engineering material in there!  And even as-is, the single string is getting closer to what I want.

 

 @m.graf, you are so right!  When you speak of including the best nodes right in Vectorworks.  Which jogged my memory and, while it took a while, I found a Symbol node that actually accepts a 3D input (which I'd dowloaded about five years ago, though I'm not sure where from; the link I saved no longer works).  It really seems like this is a node that it would be great to have in the default Marionette library.  (((It looks like I've never really actually used this node - I don't know if it just got lost in the shuffle, or if I didn't need it, or if it was somehow problematic... ... ...))).

0.10-3D Symbol Node.vwx

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  • 3 weeks later...

@m.graf and @AlanW  Here's what I wanted to accomplish (attached VW file).  It's used for creating curved slopes when working with DTMs.  For example a curved swale that wants to have a constant slope.  Or even the edges of a walkway with a complex shape, in which case the 2D plan of the walkway can be converted to a NURBS and used to replace the control geometry.  A stake object can optionally be used to find the high and low points at each end according to the DTM, and then, either way, the high and low points can be entered in the OIP.  The slider (thanks to @sbarrett's "Festoon" strings compliments of Alan) makes it easy to adjust the number of points along the curve; additional points can be added if desired (beyond the slider's limit of 25).  The final step is to snap a 3D polygon to the points and use that as source data for the DTM.  The 2D path stays down at Z=0 which is fine; it makes it easier to see and snap to the points.  Thanks for your help!

 

  

06-3D Points along Curve-2.4.0.1.vwx

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