Utilities
Maybe there are ways to do this already, but 2 things that would be super helpful and I would be prepared to pay money for are..
1.
A way to make the object I have selected the centre of the scene (0,0,0,). Give me a button or something I can click to shift everything so many x, y and z so this object is at 0,0,0 while retaining their relative co-ordinates from each other. I know I can create a group, add everything to it and use my chunky calculator to work out how much to shift it by, then alter the x, y and z of the group and then unparent anything I want out. But it is time consuming. When I fire up a scene I work out where I want the action to happen and then it needs to be 0,0,0.
2.
A script or something that would generate an A4 pdf catalogue of all the products I have installed, broken down by category. Like a paper version of the smart content. I have got to the point when I am forgetting I even have certain content. If I could print out a little catalogue it would be super helpful. Not every little object. Just the products. Rip the little pictures into a document, add their name and organize by category.
I could flip through this and plan out a scene on my sofa. Wouldn't need to be at the PC even.
Just a couple of ideas : ).
Comments
If you'd like to see some basic source code for writing a pdf file, take a look at the download on this page: http://www.chestnutpens.co.uk/misc/pdfunit.html
I wrote the code to allow the generation of PDF files in my own C++ programs. I failed to embed fonts in the pdf or compress the data streams, but ended up being able to create a version 1.4 pdf file that opens surprisingly fast compared to compressed ones. If you look at the code, you'll see it's a non-trivial task and not really suited to putting in a script.
Regards,
Richard.
Yes, more of a code problem than a Daz problem I guess.
What you did is clearly very enterprising. Never could get to grips with C++. I wonder if it could be done in Python with the right libraries. Something I may look into it if I wait any longer for these simulations to finish!
This looks like what you want?...
World Recenter script
Why, yes. Yes it does.
Thank you!
At least with respect to #2, I am in the same boat and I have been developing a standalone utility to index my catalog and give me more flexibility to full-text search it. It includes a point-and-click "give me a product fact sheet" for all the products I have installed, which I think is what you are looking The concepts themselves are not as complex as I had thought, but it still takes a lot of machinery to make the parts work together. For example, I can use a Daz script to grab metadata for all the installed products, but there are some bits of metadata that are only on the product page, which is accessible through a different API endpoint. The whole thing feels a little "creaky", but it does seem to work. Probably another week or two before it's in good enough shape, but happy to share when I get to that point.
Please do! That would be amazing.