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Symbol Creation Also Grabbing Path Object


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I'm building a simple tool that just does a distribute along path for an object, but it can end up drawing hundreds or thousands of each object along the path depending on the length and at these larger quantities it gets a little slow and cumbersome. This process works better way better just inserting a symbol since all these objects are the same anyway.

 

Rather than having to import this symbol from some external resource file, I've just adapted the original draw script to create a symbol definition resource if its already in the resource library.

 

The problem I'm running into is that if I try to run the create symbol script inside my object the custom object path gets swept up by the script and embedded into the symbol which will then break the rest of the script as the path is no longer part of the PIO. I'm not even sure how this is happening as the vs.BeginSym trigger comes well after the path creation and processing.  I've tried moving the symbol creation trigger to a couple different points in the script/event flow and nothing I've attempted prevents this. Does anybody have any recommendations on how to avoid this, or a specific event to handle this creation, or just a better way to avoid creating a symbol? 

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Thanks Pat. Here's the simplified code for reference. This would be part of a 2D path PIO with Events enabled.

 

import vs

spacingBetween = 9
bUseSymbol = True
markerSymbol = 'Direction Marker'

(BOOL, pioName, pioHandle, pioRecordHandle, pioWall) = vs.GetCustomObjectInfo()

# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
def positionMarkerSymbolResource():
	if vs.GetObject(markerSymbol) == 0:  # Check if symbol already exits, create symbol if not
		vs.BeginSym(markerSymbol)
		positionMarker((0, 0))
		vs.EndSym()

def positionMarker(pt, rotation=0):
	markerWidth = 3
	markerGroup = vs.BeginGroupN(None)
	vs.ArcByCenter(pt[0], pt[1], markerWidth/2, 0, 360)		# Draw Circle component
	vs.BeginPoly()										# Draw Triangle component
	vs.MoveTo((pt[0] - markerWidth / 2, pt[1]))
	vs.LineTo((pt[0] + markerWidth / 2, pt[1]))
	vs.LineTo((pt[0], pt[1] + markerWidth / 2))
	vs.EndPoly()
	vs.SetPolyClosed(vs.LNewObj(), True)						# Close Triangle
	vs.SetFillBack(vs.LNewObj(), (0, 0, 65535))					# Set Triangle Color
	vs.EndGroup()
	vs.HRotate(markerGroup, pt, rotation)						# Rotate Marker Group
	return markerGroup

def main():
	pathHandle = vs.HDuplicate(vs.GetCustomObjectPath(pioHandle), 0, 0)
	vs.SetFPat(pathHandle, 0)											# No Fill
	pathLength = vs.HLength(pathHandle)									# Length of Path
	ptCount = int(pathLength // spacingBetween) + 1						# Max Count by spacing
	for i in range(ptCount):
		distance = spacingBetween * i									#Distance per step
		(b, pt, tangent) = vs.PointAlongPoly(pathHandle, distance)
		rotation = vs.Vec2Ang(tangent)+90
		if bUseSymbol:
			positionMarkerSymbolResource()								# Check Symbol Resource
			vs.Symbol(markerSymbol, pt, rotation)						# Insert Symbol
		else:
			positionMarker(pt, rotation)								# Draw non symbol Marker


# ----------------------------------------EVENTS------------------------------------------------------------------------
kObjOnInitXProperties = 5
kObjOnWidgetPrep = 41
kParametricRecalculate = 3
kObjOnSpecialEditID = 7
kObjXPropSpecialEdit = 3
kReshapeSpecialEdit = 3
kObjXPropEditGroup = 1
kObjXPropEditGroupPath = 2


def execute():
	(theEvent, theButton) = vs.vsoGetEventInfo()

	if theEvent == kObjOnInitXProperties:
		vs.SetObjPropVS(kObjXPropSpecialEdit, vs.Chr(kReshapeSpecialEdit))  # Double Click Edit Path
		vs.SetObjPropCharVS(kObjXPropEditGroup, vs.Chr(kObjXPropEditGroupPath))  # Double Click Edit Path
	
	if theEvent == kParametricRecalculate:
		main()

	if theEvent == kObjOnSpecialEditID:  # Double Click Edit Path
		vs.EditObjectSpecial(pioHandle, 3)  # Double Click Edit Path

execute()

(This basic script could also be a good starting reference for anybody looking for help creating a simple duplicate along path in the future)

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  • 2 weeks later...

A fair point to explore- that was the only way I could figure out how to make the path a visible element in the drawing when I was getting started with my scripting and I've just continued to do it as it was working, but it does seem like there has to be a better way of approaching this that I'm missing- perhaps by some preference setting I haven't found yet? I never dug any deeper into that once the duplication solved the initial hurdle. 

 

That said, getting rid of the duplication doesn't help the situation and the initial path object is still grabbed by the symbol creation so it's just one less Handle variable is NIL error in the initial output until the symbol is created.

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