# Copy Spline Source
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/copy-spline-source/15051
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [July 13, 2024, 5:47pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/copy-spline-source/15051 "2024-07-13T17:47:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2024, 5:47pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/copy-spline-source/15051/1 "2024-07-13T17:47:55Z")
Hi guys,
I am trying to update the Time Manager tutorial. One trick that I have read a user has done is to create a source/ plane, then create a source/ spline, and place numerous spline points on the plane. Then, the spline points are copied and pasted into the Time Manager/ Animations/ Camera/ Interpolate Camera/ Animation Keyframe. So, two questions:
- How do I copy spline points out of a sources/ spline? If this doesn’t exist, I will write up a feature request.
- How do I paste control points into the Animation Keyframes dialog? If this doesn’t exist, I will write up a feature request.
Thanks.
@mwestphal
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### Author:  [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2024, 2:37pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/copy-spline-source/15051/2 "2024-07-14T14:37:46Z")
I have wanted to copy and paste from/to the various point tables in the ParaView UI in the past, but there isn’t an efficient way to do it. You have to select the text in each table cell individually and copy/paste. It would be nice to have some way to do that more efficiently.
Pasting to the Animation Keyframe widget is an interesting question. Each camera has not only a position, but a focal point and view up vector (and a view angle and parallel scale). What would we assume the text is in the clip board? Only positions? Position, focal point, and view up?
For this application, it might make sense to instead consider a button in the _Animation Keyframes_ dialog that lets you set camera positions or focal points from a spline source in the _Pipeline Browser_. That would make it explicit how you want to transfer values from the spline source to the camera keyframes.
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2024, 4:24am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/copy-spline-source/15051/3 "2024-07-25T04:24:53Z")
@utkarsh.ayachit @Kenneth_Moreland
Hi guys,
Have any good ideas? I really like Cory’s thoughts above. I’m tempted to ask for:
- Option to copy spline control points into a clipboard or a file.
- Option to copy clipboard or a file of spline control points into the Animation Keyframe widget as camera positions.
- Option to copy clipboard or a file of spline control points into the Animation Keyframe widget as focal points.
Are there any other uses for this functionality other than camera movement?
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### Author:  [@Kenneth\_Moreland](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Kenneth_Moreland)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2024, 3:12pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/copy-spline-source/15051/4 "2024-07-25T15:12:47Z")
I agree with @cory.quammen that it would be nice to have better general copy and paste from tables in the ParaView GUI. Maybe it would be nice to right-click and import/export csv files.
But for this specific case for the tutorial, I would suggest getting rid of the `Spine Source` and instead use the pick interaction directly in the animation keyframe.
It would help if you would point to the specific tutorial you are talking about (I cannot find it), but I assume you are creating a `Follow Path` animation track in the `Time Manager`, then opening that track, then double clicking on the `Path ...` entry and then selecting `Camera Position` and populating the spreadsheet there. Instead of creating values in the `Spline Source` and then copying those values to the camera positions, just populate the camera positions directly.
So, you would create the `Plane` as before. But then you would create the camera track, open down to the `Camera Position` settings, and then repeatedly click `+`, click back to the main window, and hit `p` to place the spline point. It’s a little more annoying that setting the points for the spline source because you have to click back and forth between the main window and the dialog, but that is a lot easier than copying the values from one GUI component to another.
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [July 26, 2024, 4:30am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/copy-spline-source/15051/5 "2024-07-26T04:30:38Z")
The tutorial is here: [Classroom Tutorials — ParaView Documentation 5.12.0 documentation](https://docs.paraview.org/en/latest/Tutorials/ClassroomTutorials/index.html) then section 9.
Interesting idea. I need to ponder it. I kind of disagree, but need to figure out why.