A Row Of Trees

[Rich_Winsor]

OK, does anybody have an easy peasy way to arrange

160 3D Italian Cypress trees evenly spaced along a 500

foot road so that they vary from 8 feet tall at one end to

30 feet tall at the other end and no two trees look alike?

 

Yeah, I didn't think so. 

[lbuttery]

evenly spaced along a 500 foot road

 

Rich:

 

Chief can do this using the distributed path tool

or the multi-copy tool

 

as for the variation in height ???

probably have to be done manually

 

as for the no look-alike - that would have to be done manually

 

maybe Landscape Pro can do it  ???

 

http://prolandscape.com/en/software/

 

Lew

[glennw]

In the Distributed Path dbx, you can specify the Angle as Random which helps hide their "sameness" when they were all oriented the same way.

[dshall]

In the Distributed Path dbx, you can specify the Angle as Random which helps hide their "sameness" when they were all oriented the same way.

Nice suggestion about the angle,  but wouldn't this only apply to 3d trees and not 2d trees?

[glennw]

d dot,

 

Yep, but the original post said:

OK, does anybody have an easy peasy way to arrange

160 3D Italian Cypress trees

 

[Gawdzira]

It depends on if you want to pay someone for this task. If you have budget for this go to this website and post it as a job

http://www.creativecrash.com/#

This is a pretty simple script although you will probably want to provide several trees for the distribution so they don't have to code an actual tree. There are other websites that specialize in freelancers for film and modeling projects of this sort.

 

It may be as easy as taking your distributed path of trees with the slight rotation into a proper 3d modeling package and just putting a modifier box around the group to stretch asymmetrically in Z at one end. I suspect you could do this in Sketchup but I am not very familiar with the program. I do know you could do this stretch easily in Maya or Max.

[jcaffee]

Create a symbol of 10+ trees and repeat on a polyline distribution path or distribution region

 

jon

[KilgoreTrout]

You can overlap two or more distribution paths and use different sizes and spacing.  Just use the copy/paste in place.

[jcaffee]

BTW, X-Frog is having a sale until the end of the month.  http://xfrog.com/

 

jon

[Rich_Winsor]

OK, here’s the poop. First off thanks for all

the suggestions. I had a play with this over

the weekend and this is what I came up with.

As suggested, there are several ways to go

about spacing out and rotating a row of trees.

But… but… but… there is no way I can find to

automagically vary the heights of the trees.

 

I’m a visually oriented guy and I start to glaze

over when I’m 700+ pages into the manual and

trying to sort out Absolute and Relative angles,

so I prepared a little demonstration with a

generic tree fitted with a dorsal fin to aide in

observing the changes in object orientation.

 

In the end I used a combination of approaches.

I broke the trees into 8 groups of 20 trees each

which also happens to be way they are laid out for

irrigation purposes. Then I created 8 Polyline

Distribution Paths using the Random Angle Object

Orientation and increasing the mean height of the

trees in each path to create a stair step effect.

I chose the Polyline Distribution Path over the

Transform/Replicate option because it offered

the Random Angle feature. Finally, (and Glenn

neglected to mention this  ), I exploded the

Distributed Objects which enables the selection

of individual trees again and manually adjusted

the heights of about 75% of them to get the

desired ascending – descending effect for the

whole line of trees.

 

I won’t bore you with how long this process took

but suffice it to say that if I was hiring Bryce

to do it I would be out hundreds of dollars.

 

Anyhoo, there they are. 160 trees with no 2 alike.

 

BTW, this is for a site plan I am working on for

my spread here. The area encompassed by the

fence is exactly 2 acres and contains all of the

structures on the property. I still have several

structures and dozens of trees to add to the

plan (file size is currently 18MB and climbing). 

[lbuttery]

Rich:

 

nice "compound"

 

with all the fencing study your walk flows and ensure you have easy access to various areas

without having to "go the long way" just to get there

 

is there access for large trucks - say a tree cutter to get to most sections of the site ?

 

I have 2/3 acre and have a 12' wide double gate at the front for large vehicles

been here 2 years and so far had a cement mixer for an addition and a tree truck

also had my pre-built shed delivered and dropped on site

 

Lew

[KilgoreTrout]

I like that the distributed paths/regions can (somewhat) randomize the angles and positions.  It would be even better if you randomize the sizes too.  I'm thinking something like putting in a min and max height and let the program set them for you.  This would have made what you were doing way easier.  You should make a suggestion for this.

[Rich_Winsor]

Rich:

 

nice "compound"

 

with all the fencing study your walk flows and ensure you have easy access to various areas

without having to "go the long way" just to get there

 

is there access for large trucks - say a tree cutter to get to most sections of the site ?

 

I have 2/3 acre and have a 12' wide double gate at the front for large vehicles

been here 2 years and so far had a cement mixer for an addition and a tree truck

also had my pre-built shed delivered and dropped on site

 

Lew

 

I am truly blessed Lew. With all the good and bad decisions

we end up making in life, somehow I managed to land on my

feet in making perhaps the biggest decision of all, where we

are going to live. 

 

Funny you should mention fencing and walk flows. After about

2 weeks on the property I made my first major investment and

bought myself a Honda Recon ATV. I haven't regretted it for

one moment since . The fences were all erected by the

dear little lady who previously owned the place. She was a

legend in the neighborhood on her tractor with her post hole

digger. The fences do help control the flow of wild critters

across the property.

 

Here is a rafter of the local gals out for their morning constitutional.

[Rich_Winsor]

I like that the distributed paths/regions can (somewhat) randomize the angles and positions.  It would be even better if you randomize the sizes too.  I'm thinking something like putting in a min and max height and let the program set them for you.  This would have made what you were doing way easier.  You should make a suggestion for this.

 

I would love to have the capability to be able to

vary the sizes of distributed objects as well as the 

spacing and rotational angle, however I'm not sure

I have the total grasp of the concepts necessary

to make a feasible request. 

 

It's always interesting to me just what computer

programs think "random" is. One could make the

argument that any combination is possible. It

just depends on the size of the sample and the

time over which it is taken. It's the old "room full

of monkeys banging away at typewriters" that

would eventually write all the great works of

literature if given enough time deal.

 

Actually I have had this sick idea festering in the

back of my mind that I should vary the heights of

the trees to exactly correspond to the heights of

the actual trees. This of course would require me

to individually edit all 160 trees.  Aaarrrggghhh!

 

BTW, to update that room full of monkeys deal

maybe it would be more appropriate to speculate

that a room full of monkeys at the keyboard with

Chief could eventually design the Taj Mahal.