Pattern Along Any Path with ARES Commander

Pattern Along Any Path

Copy entities along a path defined by another entity

Array multiple copies of a chosen entity along a line, polyline, arc, circle, ellipse or spline. Different options let you define the distance and a total number of insertions but also how to align each insertion with the chosen path.

ARES Commander now lets you copy entities along a path. Here (watch video), we have a rectangle and an arc. Using the PATTERN command, we can now choose the new function “PATH”, where we select the entity and the path. Press OK. We can see how the rectangle has been copied along with the arc. We can control how the elements will be copied along with the path.

How to copy elements along any path

For example, we can divide the path for a given amount of entities. As an example, I make 15 copies We can also determine a separation distance between entities, and ARES will copy as many entities as possible along the path with the required distance. In this case, it is likely that some path remains at the end unless of course, the total length is a multiple of the distance you defined. In this case, we will make a copy every 150 and press OK. Here we can see, that a rest of the path is left at the end since it is less than the distance needed to copy one more element. As you can see, this feature can also be used in 3D.

ALIGN ELEMENTS WITH PATH

In another example, we copy the block along the path. We, therefore determine that the trees are always vertical. To do this we must remove the “ALIGN ELEMENTS WITH PATH” option because otherwise they will always be aligned to the path.

If we activate the option “ALIGN ELEMENTS WITH PATH”, though, this is the result that we obtain. Another possibility is to specify a tangent direction that we can establish with 2 points. So, the chosen entity, in this case, the “tree”, will be copied – respecting the established tangent direction. If we want to remove the specified tangent, we click this button. We can also determine an angle, which will affect the copies and the main entity.

Let’s look at another example. We will select this tree and, as a path, select the side of the street. Press PREVIEW to overview the result. Now we are going to make some modifications so that the trees are also copied, and at the same time, on the other side of the street, as well. Press ESC to return to the dialog. Where it says “ROWS” we write “2”, and we assign a distance between them, which can be negative or positive depending on the direction. Press Preview to check that a single action is copying trees to both sides of the street.

To know more about ARES Commander, press F1 to call the help of the current command or visit the HELP section to learn more.

To learn more about ARES Commander, visit our product page: ARES Commander