Is there a way to determine Connector Pane orientation?

[Darin.K]

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@DFGray wrote:

Actually, you do neet to use tst's solution, since you can rotate and flip a connector pane multiple times.  I would determine the connector pane pattern, pick two opposite terminals, find their actual positions, compare to known patterns, then use that to determine whether or not the pane has been rotated and/or flipped and where it went.  All of this is irrelevant if you just don't do it (I don't).

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Do I need to go into group theory or will you believe me when I say the symmetry of the available connector panes is such that all combinations reduce to a set of 0,1,2 or 3 90 degree rotations?  In fact, I use rotated and flipped as simple explanations, you can take the two bits and use it as the binary value of the number of 90 degree rotations.  A flip is simply two rotations, whether it is horizontal or vertical depends on the starting orientation.

It does not matter if you flipped 1 time or 1729 times, the end result is the same.

Or please show a counter example of a pattern and set of rotations/flips which defeats this method.
 

[camerond]

Oh, please don't go into group theory. I still have flashbacks of that from advanced inorganic chem...

Cameron

[GregSands]

In terms of the original question, it came from seeing this comment just made on an old idea suggesting a Connector Pane Overhaul:

My favorite conpane for slim functions is the 3-2-2-3, rotated 90 degrees. It gives two terminals on each side that line up with the 4-2-2-4 panels, and a top-dead-center terminal for selectors and such. I can easily edit the icon for a perfectly half-height icon.

I'd never thought of that, nor have I ever rotated a ConPane in any VI I've ever written to date.  But that looked like quite a nice solution to give a 4-way horizontal connection but with central vertical connectors.  So I thought, can I script this, then looked on ni.com, and found a 10-year-old "promise" for it to be in the next update of LabVIEW. 🙂

I had, like Darin, already worked out that symmetry of the available ConPanes meant that flips were included in the rotations, and guessed that the DataType probably had info about configuration, but kudos to him for finding the significant bits.  Yet another undocumented property.  YAUP!

[jcarmody]

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@Darin.K wrote:

Do I need to go into group theory [...] 

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I read this as "Do I need to go into group therapy..."

[johnsold]

Jim,

After group theory, you will probably want group therapy.

Lynn

[JÞB]

Darin is just banking on the idosyncratic feature that all defined con pane styles are symetric about the horizontal midline so, even rotated there is a least one axis of symetry.  It didn't have to be so.

[PhillipBrooks]

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@JÞB wrote:

Darin is just banking on the idosyncratic feature that all defined con pane styles are symetric about the horizontal midline so, even rotated there is a least one axis of symetry.  It didn't have to be so.

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But it currently is 

[DFGray]

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@Darin.K wrote:

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@DFGray wrote:

Actually, you do neet to use tst's solution, since you can rotate and flip a connector pane multiple times.  I would determine the connector pane pattern, pick two opposite terminals, find their actual positions, compare to known patterns, then use that to determine whether or not the pane has been rotated and/or flipped and where it went.  All of this is irrelevant if you just don't do it (I don't).

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Do I need to go into group theory or will you believe me when I say the symmetry of the available connector panes is such that all combinations reduce to a set of 0,1,2 or 3 90 degree rotations?  In fact, I use rotated and flipped as simple explanations, you can take the two bits and use it as the binary value of the number of 90 degree rotations.  A flip is simply two rotations, whether it is horizontal or vertical depends on the starting orientation.

It does not matter if you flipped 1 time or 1729 times, the end result is the same.

Or please show a counter example of a pattern and set of rotations/flips which defeats this method.
 

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Due to the bilateral symmetry of the connector panes, that is correct.  However simply knowing a connector pane has been rotated is not enough.  You have to know how many times ;).

[Darin.K]

As I said, two bits represent 0-3 rotations. What else are you suggesting we need?