name depending on the position on a line

Question

I seek a means (python or other) to name objects aligned on an axis (in the example: z-axis) I want all the objects that have: the highest value on the z-axis is called "name_1.nnn). the smallest value is called "name_2.nnn) ... I have a lot of line so it takes a long time to do it manually! addons like "name panel," "patch renaming" do not do what I want.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:57

Sorting by z and x location

Simple script to sort all the objects in a scene named "Cube[.nnn]" by -z location and x location. Added a tolerance of 0.0001, any cube with a z within is considered in same row. The .nnn extension is the index in the order.

import bpy

context = bpy.context
scene = context.scene
# all cubes in the scene
cubes = [o for o in scene.objects if o.name.startswith("Cube")]
# row tolerance
TOL = 0.0001
if cubes:
    #sort them by -z , x loc
    cubes  = sorted(cubes, key = lambda o: (-o.location.z, o.location.x))
    row = 1
    z = cubes[0].location.z
    for i, cube in enumerate(cubes):
        if abs(cube.location.z - z) > TOL:
            row += 1
            z = cube.location.z
        cube.name = "Cube_%d.%03d" % (row, i)

To name them similarly to the convention in the q, could

cube.name = cube.name.replace("Cube", "Cube_%d" % row)

To make sure global locations are used, use cube.matrix_world.to_translation() instead of cube.location.

Or if the objects have differing origins, could use the bounding box centre as a location.

Is there a way to make it work for any kind of object in a collection? — Nascent Space, Jul 21 '21 at 04:19

name depending on the position on a line

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