Little easy object placement macro

[Joe]

Hi all!

Haven't been here for a loooong time, but made this super-simple little macro for a task and thought maybe it could come in handy to someone, it's kinda neat.

What it does is it takes a bunch (or just one) of objects and then as you click it places a copy of a random object at a random angle. Here's an example:



So you want to place those sea-things onto the water. Normally arranging them would be quite a chore, here you just select all the objects on top, start the macro, click like crazy, then press ESC to cancel the placement mode and get this:



You can undo any placement or right click to move them mid-placement and, of course, change the positions after you are done placing. But it's a good start. Here's the code, I hope someone finds it useful:

Sub ObPlacer()
  If ActiveSelection.Shapes.Count = 0 Then
    MsgBox "Please select at least one object.", vbOKOnly

    Exit Sub
    End If

    Dim X As Double, Y As Double
    Dim b As Boolean
    Dim s As Shape
    Dim Pool As ShapeRange
    Dim Count As Single, WhichOne As Single

    Set Pool = ActiveSelectionRange
    Count = Pool.Shapes.Count

    b = False

    While Not b
    
    b = ActiveDocument.GetUserClick(X, Y, 0, 10, False, cdrCursorSmallcrosshair)
        If Not b Then
          WhichOne = Int(Rnd * Count + 1)
          ActiveDocument.BeginCommandGroup ("Placed Object")
          Set s = Pool.Shapes(WhichOne).Duplicate(X - Pool.Shapes(WhichOne).CenterX, Y - Pool.Shapes(WhichOne).CenterY)
          s.Rotate (Rnd * 360)
          ActiveDocument.EndCommandGroup
        End If
    Wend
  End Sub

If/when I finally get my brain to understand shelby's excellent new X6 docker tutorial I might try to make a proper version with settings and such.

[Sablesword]

Nifty idea. I'll have to see what I can do with this.

[Joe]

Thanks, Sablesword

So it seemed like some options were missing and thus I have built a small GUI for the thing:



With the new options you can set the range within which the objects are randomly turned and resized, and there's also an option for random flipping, thus enabling more natural placement of certain objects:



The bottom panel lets you do similar things to objects already placed (nudge and rotate them) while the nodes option nudges the nodes of curve objects.

There are no real error messages yet so be careful what objects you use it on - if it crashes with a non-curveable object it'll be stuck in the accelerated mode and won't redraw the screen (for now).

Place the GMS in the usual directory and call ShowOrHideGUI

Enjoy, feedback and suggestions welcome.

[Joe]

Never mind me, just adding more features as they come to mind:



Orbit placement mode is the new thing in this revision. Best explained by example. So we have a barren little planet like this:



And would like to place some alien vegetation on it:



Using standard tools (or even the standard placement tools in this macro) it would take a while to position all these objects, but using the Orbit mode you just Select the vegetation objects, Push the button, Click in the middle of the planet and then Click around the perimeter. And get this:



Enjoy, feedback and suggestions as always welcome.

[ddonnahoe]

This is a great idea. I'll play with it a little and send some feedback.

[Joe]

It's not too easy, but I'm slowly getting the hang of the new WPF docker possibilities in X6 (thanks, Shelby!) so here is a taste of things to come:



Once it's all working properly I'll try to post the docker as well.