Random length siding or decking - plugin?

[unearthed]

Hi, A client has asked me to design a modular house (I'm just doing the shell) and we're going to build 26 of them (yey), So I came up with the idea of cladding them in vertical random-length boards, something like images here http://www.archdaily.com/674/co2-saver-house-peter-kuczia/02-detail-south-west-phot-t-pikula/ and attached.

Like Peter Kuczia I will probably mix in boards of different colors/materials, even very narrow feature windows as views to South are great but South is Antarctica too, brrrr.

So has anyone built a plugin to place boards of a random length on a surface?

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[sdmitch]

Yes, try my FloorGenerator plugin on my blog or in the Plugin Store. Don't let the name fool you, its really more a pattern generator and works on horizontal or vertical faces.

[unearthed]

Thank you sdmitch, I think that'll do me nicely, But would it be possible to add a seed/minimum length to the length box? As this will be wood siding on a house I'm probably looking at a minimum length of ~400mm

I've watched the vid and think this tool could also do some planting plans, I'll do a separate post and ask you there

[sdmitch]

@unearthed said:

Thank you sdmitch, I think that'll do me nicely, But would it be possible to add a seed/minimum length to the length box? As this will be wood siding on a house I'm probably looking at a minimum length of ~400mm

I've watched the vid and think this tool could also do some planting plans, I'll do a separate post and ask you there

Currently, if Fixed Length is unchecked, the maximum length is the length entered and the minimum is 75% of that.

[unearthed]

Thanks, so when I poked around in the code, the only two .75 instances i found were:

Line 458: end until tx>=dx0.25 && tx<=dx0.75
Line 463: end until tx>=dx*0.75

So I suppose if I tweak those I can get a shorter minimum length - I will play tomorrow [it is tomorrow as I couldn't sleep]

[sdmitch]

@unearthed said:

Thanks, so when I poked around in the code, the only two .75 instances i found were:

Line 458: end until tx>=dx0.25 && tx<=dx0.75
Line 463: end until tx>=dx*0.75

So I suppose if I tweak those I can get a shorter minimum length - I will play tomorrow [it is tomorrow as I couldn't sleep]

Line 458 controls the length of the starting "board"
Line 463 is the one that controls the minimum length

[unearthed]

Thanks very much sdmitch, I'm not a coder at all, but even failing a programming degree has proven useful, also Notepad++ very helpful for find code bits

I can now go and roll this idea across a subdivision and all will look nicely loose and random