I just discovered the ability to create a repeater from an existing path item, which is great, but it doesn’t seem to stay linked, meaning you have to recreate it if changes are made to the original path.
Adding a “use parent path” option to curve repeaters would be a great way, UI-wise, to handle this and keep the connection alive IMO. Just place the repeater as a child of the associated tube or whatever, and let it use that object’s curve data.
Though, since that eliminates the ability to then nest a curve repeater in a radial repeater, a more robust (albeit complex) option would be letting the user select an object to use as the repeater path, rather than just basing it on the parent.
Another option would be to just have the “use parent path” option go up the hierarchy and use the first ancestor with a path available.
One potential problem with this is handling validation of the parent path object. A possible solution would be to transfer a copy of the path at time of validation to the repeater. Since the parent path can’t be edited anymore, there’s no need to maintain the link.
Maybe a longer-term, but much more robust option would be to add a “path” object type that doesn’t render any geometry directly, but can then be referenced/shared by any tools that use paths. This would allow lathes, tubes, and curve repeaters to all easily use the same path, which would, IMO, streamline workflows and give a lot more flexibility when trying to use these tools together.
