hollister design Studio Posted July 23, 2021 Share Posted July 23, 2021 Is there a way to do this using the Plant Tool in 'poly edged spaced mode"? I couldn't find anything in the documentation about this so I tried using the 'Duplicate Along Path" tool. The first time I tried this the Plant Objects they were not centered along the polyline (I did have 'center object on path' selected.) The second try VW crashed hard. The third time VW crashed again. So then I duplicated a circle along the path and then just snapped each plant to the center of each circle. Much slower and limited editing control (I really like the ease VW allows for moving rows of Plant Objects!) vs if they followed a polyline. So then I tried using the Plant Tool in 'poly edge space mode' to create a straight path and using the 'reshape tool' converted the straight line into a curved line. I really thought I had found the work around! But this created a polygon with 50 or so vertexes - again not an easy object to edit. What is the best way for plants and hedges to follow curves? Some screen grabs Using the duplicate along path tool path, original object, and offset final object highlight: using the reshape tool: Quote Link to comment
mjm Posted July 23, 2021 Share Posted July 23, 2021 Could you try the path with a simple 2d object then use the "Replace with symbol" option under the "Convert" menu? 2 Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Tamsin Slatter Posted July 23, 2021 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted July 23, 2021 Draw the curve using the polyline tool. In the Plant tool, choose your plant and the poly edged space mode, then choose the Fill Bucket mode (I can't remember exactly what it's called, but choose it instead of Insertion mode. Then click on the Polyline. It will convert it to a Plant object and the plants will be perfectly aligned along the path. 4 Quote Link to comment
Tom W. Posted July 23, 2021 Share Posted July 23, 2021 Or you can essentially do the same thing using the 'Create Objects From Shapes...' command 4 Quote Link to comment
Popular Post Jeff Prince Posted July 23, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted July 23, 2021 (edited) 8 hours ago, Tom W. said: Or you can essentially do the same thing using the 'Create Objects From Shapes...' command I think the advantage to your method is the fact you can elect to keep your source curves in the event that you have to reshape it 🙂 This is especially important when using bezier curves. With Tasmin's method, the source curve is changed from a polyline to a polygon and the original curve is approximated with a ton of vertices. So, you have to remember to make a copy of your curve prior to initiating the command. It would be nice if Vectorworks just kept the original curve as part of the plant definition for reshaping purposes rather than converting it. I tend to keep a lot of layout information on a separate design layer due to these behaviors and their consequences when the design changes. Edited July 23, 2021 by jeff prince 6 Quote Link to comment
hollister design Studio Posted July 23, 2021 Author Share Posted July 23, 2021 Thanks Tamsin, I'll try the bucket mode. And Tom too, I'll try the convert to object workflow. 48 minutes ago, jeff prince said: ...It would be nice if Vectorworks just kept the original curve as part of the plant definition for reshaping purposes rather than converting it... I do like the keeping the original shapes - especially if the curve get converted to an approximated curve composed of straight lines... that's what creating the curve shape with the reshape tool resulted in when I was exploring this. I use the reshape tool all the time on my straight plant object paths. If you have to basically rebuild a new curve for any edit - and then re-convert to a new plant group - you lose all your tag editing and any data tags you've attached to the plants... Has editable curve plant grouping been added to the 'wish list'? 1 Quote Link to comment
hollister design Studio Posted July 23, 2021 Author Share Posted July 23, 2021 Tried both of the above methods and got interesting results. Bucket mode created the "thousand vertices" plant object - and it was like my normal setting (tic on, tag off) Convert to object created the "Million vertices" plant object - But had everything turned on. Bucket mode: Convert to object: Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Popular Post Peter Neufeld. Posted August 7, 2021 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Popular Post Share Posted August 7, 2021 Nah, the easiest way is to create the path object, place one instance of a plant and use the Edit>Duplicate along Path command. You can preview the numbers or set a distance between each plant as well as other controls and the path object remains afterwards. All you need to do is to select the plants and go to the Landmark>Change Plant Grouping and they become 'Plants at Poly Vertices' and voila you're done! See the screenshot (and thanks to the Text>Convert Text to Polylines command!) Cheers, Peter 6 Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Tamsin Slatter Posted August 9, 2021 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted August 9, 2021 @Peter Neufeld.Nice - yet another great solution! 2 Quote Link to comment
hollister design Studio Posted August 9, 2021 Author Share Posted August 9, 2021 This is a good solution. On 8/7/2021 at 1:10 AM, Peter Neufeld. said: ...select the plants and go to the Landmark>Change Plant Grouping... I just wish there was better 'polygon' editing for the auto generated change plant groupings! I almost always have to redo the order by placing new plants and snapping to the auto generated spacing. The auto generated polygons can sometimes be... very odd. (side note - plus we still can't make segments of the polygons 'curve' around other plants or objects for clarity. this would be SO helpful!) 2 Quote Link to comment
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