Scale by Absolute Value?(newbie question)

[Kronso]

Hi, I've been learning some procedural modeling, and have run into something probably suuuuper simple, that I can't figure out.  I've been searching through help menus to find an answer but haven't had any luck. Also apologies if I have trouble verbalizing my problem.

What is the easiest way to scale an object on an axis to a specific value?  I have two imported obj's of some arbitrary size.  I'm trying to scale object #1 down, to make room for object #2, based on obj #2's size. Like Obj1.z = Obj1.z-Obj2.z.  I was hoping something like using a transform node and scaling an axis by bbox("../object1",D_ZSIZE)-bbox("../object2",D_ZSIZE) but that doesn't seem to work unless the object was originally exactly 1 in scale? 

I've made some convoluted way of creating a line across the z axis of each object, and measuring that. Then in a wrangle, dividing obj2 size by obj1 size and subtracting that from 1, then plugging it into a transform nodes z scale. It does work, but I was hoping for something a bit easier/quicker moving forward.  

Any help would be super appreciated! This is all still pretty foreign to me, coming from maya.

Thanks!

 

 

[konstantin magnus]

You can squeeze an arbitrary object between two other objects by

• translating it to the center of the gap: (bbox('../LEFT', D_XMAX) + bbox('../RIGHT', D_XMIN)) / 2
• temporarily scaling it to unit size: 1 / $SIZEX
• and scaling it by the size of the gap: abs(bbox('../LEFT', D_XMAX) - bbox('../RIGHT', D_XMIN))

Not entirely sure whether this is what you have requested, though.

squeeze_inbetween_objects.hipnc

[Kronso]

Thanks so much Konstantin!  This is exactly what I was looking for. I was getting way over complicated with VEX, when this is way simpler and with less nodes.

 

Super appreciated, that'll help simplify a ton of stuff I've been working on.