$F_Frame in filename string

[j00ey]

Hello

I'm pretty new to Houdini so apologies if this is a really dumb question...

I'm trying to read in a series of 3D scans in ply format exported from another soft. They're named:

0_Frame 0.ply

1_Frame 1.ply etc...

When I put "$F_Frame $F.ply" [without the inverted commas] in the filename field of a File SOP the string appears to evaluate to " 1.ply" [ie with a space before the frame number]. If I instead put "$F Frame $F.ply" it evaluates to "1 Frame 1.ply".

Can someone tell me what I need to put in here or if I should just batch rename all the files?

Thanks very much in advance

[old school]

Put curly braces around {$F} to qualify it:

${F}_Frame ${F}.ply <<< Fixed the error where I mistakenly put {} around $F

There are some that argue for . separators between frames and names and others that use _ then some use - but spaces? Windows I guess.

As far as I am concerned, I don't care as I qualify my variables with {} so the houdini string parser can properly deal with variables then write modern wrapper scripts that can deal with _, -, or . .

Edited April 2, 2013 by old school

[j00ey]

Hi

Thanks very much for that.

Yes, I've no idea who thought that putting a space in would be a good idea but yes it's windows. The other software is Artec Studio which is a 3D scanning application [works with Artec hardware]

I tried the curly braces and it's evaluating the frame numbers now but it keeps in the braces so now it's evaluating as {1}_Frame {1}.ply and consequently still doesn't work.

Is there some way I can add this to a null for example as a string variable, evaluate it there then reference it with chs() maybe?

Thanks again for your time

[j00ey]

I've figured out a way of doing this but it doesn't seem a very elegant method. This is what I now have in my filename field:

`strcat("G:/dumbThings/Minotaur/scansExport/front and right/",strcat($F,strcat("_Frame ",strcat($F,".ply"))))`

I'll stick with this for now and write out more sensibly named geo sequences but I'd be very interested in a cleaner solution should anyone have one...

[Guest mantragora]

Add your custom expresion in Edit->Aliases and Variables->Expressions:

string MyPath(string path, string filename, string extension, float frame)
{
string begin = strcat(path, frame);
string middle = strcat(filename, frame);
string merged = strcat(begin, strcat(middle, extension));
return merged;
}

and then in path

`MyPath("$HIP/Desktop/New folder/", "_Frame ", ".ply", $F - 1)`

OR

string MyFileName(string filename, string extension, float frame)
{
string begin = strcat(frame, filename);
string end = strcat(begin, frame);
string merged = strcat(end, extension);
return merged;
}

and then in path

$HIP/Desktop/New folder/`MyFileName("_Frame ", ".ply", $F - 1)`

Edited April 2, 2013 by mantragora

[j00ey]

Ah, I've never seen that menu item, looks very interesting. Thanks very much!

[halfdan]

Put curly braces around {$F} to qualify it:

The $ sign should be on the outside of the curly braces. E.g.: ${F}

${F}_Frame ${F}.ply

[old school]

I corrected my post above...

Brain cramp on my part.

[j00ey]

Ah yes, that works now. Thanks everyone for the input, Much appreciated.