Monday, January 24, 2011

Array Pattern - first steps

I started to implement the array pattern command. It can be used to make something similar with a chess board.
Before starting the command, the user will select the desired object to pattern and a direction. It seems pretty normal that array pattern should work in a plane. This is why I will use current drawing plane as the pattern plane(without asking the user). So, be careful with the drawing planes. But still, the drawing plane is not enough to even start the command. It is pretty obvious that the rows have some king of direction; the same goes for the colomns. this is why I will ask the user to select the row direction. Still, I will not ask the user to select the colomns direction because it must be perpendicular with the rows direction. So, NaroCAD will do it for you. 4 more parameters are: the number of rows and colomns and the distance between the objects(row distance and colomn distance).
The row direction will depend on how the line is drawn: from the first point, to the second point. Due to the fact that the patterned objects might not appear in the desired direction, I added 2 check-boxes in order to allow the user to reverse the desired direction, if necessary.
With this functionality, I hope that I covered everything a user needs in order to make an array pattern. If you have any new ideas, or wish to ask questions about this command, do not hesitate to post on the forum. The command will be available tomorrow in the last nightly build.

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