Hi,

Is there an easy way in VCP 6 to grab/copy a line from somewhere (say, already in the drawing) and then copy that line to multiple, random locations?

I want to pre-designate all the desired target locations, then tell tell VCP to copy some particular entity, and then paste it at once to various locations. This would be a major timesaver since there is no apprehension over translate or needing to hold any alt or shift key. Just lasso the target points, copy a source object, and hit a button or an icon or a shortcut.

Why would this be helpful? Let's say you're designing a safety railing and the stanchions have to follow some path that is not amenable to an array (radial/grid). It's kinda of tedious to have to do it how i currently am, which is draw a line for the stanchion, divide it and color code 3 segments, then copy to some middle/easy-to-reach area in my drawing, then copy and translate.

Then, i extrude solids/pipes and then remove intersections. It would be incredibly faster to lasso the targets and then en-masse paste a reference for the stanchion. Then, so long as i get my view right, lasso one height of the stanchion through which an intermediate or lower course might pass. But, even better would be to ad-hoc or permanently assign a node group id to the endpoints and then tell the app "Draw a spline or some line suitable for pipe extrusions along this path and do it linearly, not corkscrew or helically..."

Then, i could assign pipe ID/OD to the courses and stanchions and end pieces and hand railing. Drawing handrails for 560 feet of distance on one level and maybe 300 feet on another level, and not all of it being symmetrical makes for a lot of mind-numbing work.

VC 7 2D3D and Shark V7 have a macro function that enables simple scripting by importing a text file. I've just glanced at it, and one function is "move", the action requires a body ID and x,y,z1 and x,y,z2 points to describe the vector. "Lassoing" the points is a fairly glib description of the action, so I'm assuming that you mean being able to parametrise them. If you place your stanchion with the reference point at origin, move would appear to do what you want, except that a copy function isn't on the list of commands. A way around might be to use relative coordinates and initiate the script while holding ctrl.
I just had a quick play with it and couldn't get it to work off the bat. I tried to move a line, which didn't run, rechecked the specs and found it specified "body ID", and "bodies" can have booleans performed, so I tried it with a solid cylinder instead, again unsuccessfully. Getting late now, so I'm closing the toybox. Perhaps I'm not formatting the script instructions right. I'll experiment some more over the next couple of days.

Tim, I've just searched and found a couple of example macros that you'd posted previously that give me something to go on with formatting. One thing I noticed in your example is that some of the coords that you've used go on to 16 decimal places. Do VC and Shark use all of those? Can they, if the precision is explicit?

murray