getting the locatornames from the distanceDimension tool?

[greatPumpkin]

You can capture the output with a bit of mel:

string $myDistanceDim[] = `distanceDimension -sp -1.0 4.0 1.0 -ep -1.0 -0.0 1.0`;

I can't remember the output exactly, but you should get the distance dimension node, and two locators as a result of this command, so... lets say you wanted to select the two locators after running the above:

select -r $myDistanceDim[1];
select -r $myDistanceDim[2];

if that doesn't work lemme know, if it doesn't return the locators you can also find them using the distance dimension node itself-

[Leffler]

You can capture the output with a bit of mel:

string $myDistanceDim[] = `distanceDimension -sp -1.0 4.0 1.0 -ep -1.0 -0.0 1.0`;

I can't remember the output exactly, but you should get the distance dimension node, and two locators as a result of this command, so... lets say you wanted to select the two locators after running the above:

select -r $myDistanceDim[1];
select -r $myDistanceDim[2];

if that doesn't work lemme know, if it doesn't return the locators you can also find them using the distance dimension node itself-






No it doesn´t work, the output from the distDim is not an array

Return value:
string- the shape name of the DAG node created.

[YourDaftPunk]

If you graph the connections to the distanceShape node that is created by the distanceDimension command, you'll see that it has two incoming connections from the locators. These connections feed the distance node worldPosition for the distance calc.

In code, the way to see a node's connections is the listConnections command. So, the solution:

string $distanceShape = `distanceDimension -sp -1.0 4.0 1.0 -ep -1.0 -0.0 1.0`;

string $locators[] = `listConnections $distanceShape`;

print("Start Locator: " + $locators[0] + "\n");
print("End Locator: " + $locators[1] + "\n");

Another incredibly useful mel command is listRelatives; say you're trying to find a shape node and you only know the transform (pSphere1 to pSphereShape1).

[Leffler]

Thanks Shawn, I wasn´t familiar with these commands at all. Great stuff.

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