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Is there a way to move chairs to fit to curved floor?


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I'm working on a drawing with a bowl floor front of house section (slopes up from center to the outside as well as front to back). The seating is also arranged on a curve. The result of this is that every chair needs to have a unique z height. I have ished it so far by setting a height for each row that is close. I was wondering if there is a way to move objects down to where the intersect with the floor. I am loath to try to do it individually by chair and even If I wanted to do it that way I am not sure how I would do that in a way that was vaguely accurate. If it matters, the floor is currently a solid addition and the original slope for this section was made as a nurbs surface. I am not looking for ultra precision, I am just looking for closer then this.

 

If that isn't really possible how do folks typically deal with floors like this? What is best practice here? Thanks!

 

 

Screen Shot 2021-05-17 at 1.16.21 PM.png

Screen Shot 2021-05-17 at 1.19.54 PM.png

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello,

You might consider the use of the Model>Surface Array command. Depending in how you break up the sections nonetheless it is a great command. At the very least you might array 3D loci to the surface to allow you to then snap the symbols in place. The file and screenshot enclosed are just a quick example. Perhaps the hardest thing might be getting the NURBS Surface (Base surface) correctly modelled. The symbol has to be a 3D only one and as a symbol its shape won't distort no matter the array numbers.

 

Cheers,

Peter

1414995348_Screenshot2021-05-28at5_15_40pm.thumb.png.87125f5909ad9c91d5292e9aa9998582.png

 

Symbol and Surface Array.vwx

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Duplicate along path might be useful but it doesn't work with the objects I have. I suppose if all the items followed the exact same curve then I could make one nurbs curve and duplicate it but since in this case the curve should change (the surface was created by lofting between two different profiles) I would have to figure out every path individually. I thought I could maybe do something by 2d curve in plan view, using that to cut the nurbs surface somehow at the correct location, extracting the nurbs curve from the cut edge of the nurbs surface, and use that to duplicate along path. Repeat forever. I gave up on it after a little while.

 

The surface array is definitely interesting. It is unfortunate that it can't be used with hybrid objects but that is fine. The more difficult part is that it appears to be difficult to fine tune any individual chair. Like if you needed to delete one because in real life there is a wheel chair access or a sound board here or something or just getting all the things to end up in the right place relative to walls and aisles and such.

 

I continue to be a little surprised at the situations where Vectorworks hasn't quite figured out how to deal with.

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8 hours ago, johnrd said:

I continue to be a little surprised at the situations where Vectorworks hasn't quite figured out how to deal with.

 

 

Actually the very exact opposite is true - it's up to us to figure it out - not Vectorworks!

 

I think the best way is to use the Create Contour tool from the 3D toolset and use that as the path for a Edit>Duplicate Along Path. If you do this on a NURBS Surface then it's a single NURBS Curve for each contour which is cleaner than doing it through a solid that has thickness so no tidying up. You might have to adjust the height of the created duplicates but that offset should be the same for all rows. Although slightly tedious I think this is the best method as the contours follow the terrain.

 

37 sec, no audio movie enc.

 

Cheers,

Peter

 

 

 

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