Copying Along A Path

Dave R · 2 Apr 2008, 00:42

Things are kind of fuzzy in my old age but I seem to recall some talk about a plugin that would not only copy a component along a path but would also orient the components so they would lay on the path. Think about the planks on an arched bridge in a Japanese garden. Does such a critter exist? I have Rick W's pathcopy which will give me the components spaced along the path but they don't end up laying on the path even though the original one is.

RickW · 2 Apr 2008, 03:50

Change the axes of your component to make it lay flat. I think we emailed back and forth on that one (I remember examples), but maybe it was on the forum.

EDIT: Oops, didn't read closely enough. For that situation, I'd suggest creating the thing sideways, then rotating it into position.

Gaieus · 2 Apr 2008, 08:56

Dave,

If it is a (kind of regular) arc, can you not just use the radial array (Ctrl+Rotate) from a quite remote centerpoint from below the bridge?

Dave R · 2 Apr 2008, 10:27

Thanks guys. Rick, maybe we did e-mail about this but I don't remember it. I should have attached a picture of what I ma trying to do. This is the start of an Adirondack chair that another guy is working on. He asked for an easy way to get the slats laid in place. I started with the one at the bottom and the edge of the rail for the path. You can see what happened after doing the copy thing. The brown slat in the foreground is the original.

I did work out a method for positioning the slats correctly but it is very tedious moving and rotating them.

Rick, I'll try rotating things so the slats run vertically if you think that would help.

GreyHead · 2 Apr 2008, 11:40

I like playing with these little problems. I found a script I had installed under 'Plugins | Power | Copy to spacing' that seems to do this OK. I had to set the component axes to the center of a flat edge to get them to align tangentially; and then experiment a lot with the spacing in the VCB.

Bob

PS Later: Looks like the script is PathCopy - I guess the important bit is setting the component axes.

Dave R · 2 Apr 2008, 11:46

Hi Bob,

Thanks. I hadn't thought about moving the axis. I'll give it a whirl

Dave

dtrarch · 2 Apr 2008, 15:21

#1

The copy along has just driven me crazy but check this file out and see if this trick really works.

Draw path and a perpendicular line on end node.
Make line a component.
Then edit the line to whatever and copy along path (spacing).

The line seems to setup the orientation properly.

"Trust but verify" RR

#2

PathCopy trick.skp

Dave R · 2 Apr 2008, 15:29

Thank you sir. I'll take a look at that. I managed to get something to work which I show, below. Figuring out the axis orientation was a bit of trial and error but then I haven't had much use for the script before.

I can't take credit or blame for the frame of the chair. Only the placement of the slats.

GreyHead · 2 Apr 2008, 16:40

That looks very good!

The PathCopy seems to put the red axis of the component tangential to the curve but keeps the blue axis vertical. Here's a little experiment with dtrarch's model (added a sideways line to show the orientation more clearly.

Bob

Dave R · 2 Apr 2008, 16:52

That's cool. Well, I won't be getting any work done for awhile now. I'm going to be playing with this instead.