Blending along a curve

[palosanto]

I'm using the blend command to clone an object along a curve orienting the object as it follows the shape.
My drawing is already pretty heavy as I've done this multiple times across the design and the object that repeats is made of more than 100 smaller elements.
So, I can feel the zoom and pan very sluggish under the weight of the drawing.

I tried now making a bitmap copy of the object to repeat hoping that it will lighten the memory requirements. It blends fine initially in a straight line but when I try to wrap it to the curve it fails and I only get the first and last objects ignoring the number of copies required.
Is this by design that the blend doesn't wrap if the elements are bitmaps? I'm almost certain that I could do that in the past ...
Thanks

[handrawn]

I am pretty sure that bitmaps will only blend in a straight line and only vectors can be mapped to a curve

not sure what you are doing, but if a bitmap would be acceptable in the blend, would a bitmap of the finished blended vector fit to curve help ongoing - you could always save out the original blend fit to curve to xar file as asset for future reuse/editing....

[palosanto]

I am pretty sure that bitmaps will only blend in a straight line and only vectors can be mapped to a curve

not sure what you are doing, but if a bitmap would be acceptable in the blend, would a bitmap of the finished blended vector fit to curve help ongoing - you could always save out the original blend fit to curve to xar file as asset for future reuse/editing....

That's exactly what I ended up doing, I created the blend with the vector elements, replaced it with its BMP copy and kept the original blend hidden but reduced to only 2 instances instead of 100 so that it lightens the weight of the drawing.
Now pan and zoom are instant. I can always increase the instances of the original blend if need it later.
Thanks!

[handrawn]

you are welcome - glad you got it sorted