So here my latest thought. Create a tool to draw a 2d rectangle on screen. Depending upon the direction of the rectangle it becomes a window or crossing box (or I have separate tools for each so direction it is drawn doesn't play a role). Then I use view.PickRay on the corners of the 2d rectangle. If I am using my rectangle as a window, I test vector from camera to each point in the model to see if it lies within the rectangle (x and y ray range test against my rectangle). If all the points of a face are pass the test that face and attached edges are in the selection (in my case I only care about faces, not edges). If any point of a face fails the test then that face is not in the selection. If I am using my rectangle as a crossing box, then I want to test each face in my model to see if it intersects with any of the four rays from my 2d triangle. If any of the four rays intersect a face, then that face is included in the selection. This doesn't address edges, which is OK for my use. If I wanted to get edges in crossing box, it would be great to convert the edge to 2d line on screen, and then see if the edge points either pass the ray range test, or interest the lines that make up the rectangle. Haven't dug into the API to see if that is even possible.) An entirely different approach (again just for faces, and in this case just window, not crossing box) would be to have the script first copy every point in the model to a loose top level point. Then I would activate the built in SketchUp selection tool. The user would make a section like they normally do. This would create an array of 3d points. I could then test the nested faces. If all of the points of a given face are in the 3d point array, then that face would be selected. I would loop through all faces, and then throw away the temporary top level points used to make the array in the first place. This solution doesn't seem nearly as clean as the first solution.

Great! That makes things a lot clearer. @unknownuser said: Avoid global $ variables that can clash with other's coding as they are accessible to everything! Thats especially the thing I was not sure about about. The last thing I wanna do is barge in here ruin everyones scripts.. Thanks a lot!

Thank you. I will tell my friend - it's impossible. Forget about it.

I moved this the Developers' Forum... Thomthom is quite right - in v8 there are lots of new tools to perform boolean operations on two solids, and tools to make them solids beforehand [if possible]...[image: OTWk_Capture.PNG]

@jim said: Is it a possibility that extensions written independently by different authors inadvertently use the same Extension name? Of course they can, if they choose a simple name like "Cylinder" and do not set a version string, or everyone starts out with "1.0.0".. then yes they can conflict. Authors should use unique names, like: "Foltz: Cylinder", and use a proper version string. @unknownuser said: Would that mean that only the last loaded extension would be available? Sketchup decides whether to load (or not to load,) extensions, based upon a concatination of the name and version string. (Check the registry and you'll see what I mean.)

I finally got TIG's version going(forgot to comment out #def.self when running it in R.code.editor, amanidiot!) SOme funky thing going on when changing hatch_angle. But its stable and works in any axis. Not what can be said about "my" script. A bit unstable, until the intersectionpart. My intuition tells me doing copying edges within groups + intersection gives more predictable hatch_result when rotating hatches. But is alot more unstable when gathering and erasing? Plan A: Stop whining and get the work done so Layout-users finally have a hatch-plugin Plan B: Adjust TIG's script so it works in all angles, with menus and such. (will be difficult, since I don't totally understand it yet) PlanC: Continue to work on mine(a bit egoistic but I won't learn from copy/paste), integration as much of TIG's script as I can, thus make my script more stable if possible. However. That might not be possible, and I would have to do at least 5 different methods for views. I guess I'm asking if there is any pointers for things to avoid that make this script crash.

Ok,I like this definition:If all the edges in the geometry have 2 faces ,it is a solid. Maybe I have complicated a little

@adamb said: @thomthom said: I did that for Vertex Tools, I take the average normal of the faces connected to the vertex. You're missing a step with your averaging there. You need to weight by the contribution each face connected to the vertex makes - ie weight by the interior angle otherwise a cube constructed of triangles will end up with vertex normals not all pointing out exactly at 45 degrees. How does one do that?

Also note that TAB on MAC only fires with onKeyUp and is ignored otherwise ! The TAB key == 9 or 15 or 48 [for PC or MAC or ??]

@spireup said: Now Im just trying to get the syntax right for those inner args arrays. eg(not working) class WidgetSet < Array > end # class > > class Widget < Hash > > attr_accessor ;arg1, ;xPos, ;yPos, ;zPos, ;height, ;width, ;type > > def initialize(arg1, xPos, yPos, zPos, height, width, type) > > Hash.new["arg1", arg1, "xPos",xPos,"yPos",yPos,"height", height, "width", width,"type", type] > @arg1 = arg1 ##etc for each arg > MyWidgets < self > end It does you no good to construct an object without a reference to it (the line with Hash.new). If you want to use a Hash, then use one for your Widgets. They need not be a custom subclass, unless you need custom methods. Hashes dont need attributes (instance refs,) because they use key / value pairs, instead. my_widget_1 = { 'xPos' => 3.4, 'yPos' => 1.0, 'zPos' => 2.3, 'height' => 6.784, 'width' => 4.0, 'type' => "some_type" } There is another thread on how to save and retrieve hashes into/from an Attribute dictionary. see: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=30066 Arguments: *list_name compacts an argument list into a local array referenced by list_name Within the method, you can access array elements using the [] method. def some_method(*args) @xPos =( args.size>0 ? args[0] ; 0.0 ) @yPos =( args.size>1 ? args[1] ; 0.0 ) # etc. end If you use 5 arguments, but a call gives more than 5, the addtional arguments will be still be stored in the local array, and no ArgumentError, will be raised. I suggest you visit the Code Snippet index: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=28846&p=323876#p322175

Thank you Jim! That did the trick! So .each method does not hold the iterator variable, but a for loop does in Ruby. Good to know. Thom, I'm only inspecting the first item that is selected. I'm hoping that doesn't load the entire selection set and cause delays. I'm a relatively novice programmer so I don't really know, but I don't see any studdering with the menu when I have a large selection.

Here's a new v2.0 that tidies it up a bit... http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=340452#p340452

It's likely that "Enter Text" is a localized string, defined within the Sketchup executable's resources (ie, a string table.) It will change depending on which language edition the user is running. You could write a custom Text tool, and use either UI.inputbox() or a UI::Webdialog instead.. then you can control what the default text is.

Bill, Serge, Everyone - I've moved the Hotkeys discussion to a new topic. Keep on trussing.

@unknownuser said: sort of off topic but.. when lion is released this month, the user library is hidden by default.. pretty much anything messing with the user library is going to become more complicated to describe to other users as there's going to be an extra instruction needed to explain how to unhide it or how to find it.. Well.. not really off topic... this has become a continuation of anothor thread (also started by Jim I think, titled something like, "Where to store user files" or similar.) In that thread I explained that Windows has hidden (maybe since Win95?) the user's %AppData% path. I can see it because I always go into the File Settings and set show all files types and file extensions. (What can I say... geeky as charged.) Weird that OSX gets more like Windows.. and Windows is now built upon a Linux core.

suberb, and this on a sunday!!! Thx tig and dan, much appreciated!

AAHH! Yes! Now it works. I spotted the . 25cm mistake. But did not think about the spaces. Thank you very much TIG and Jim!! I've learned a lot from this. Now I need to learn what has really happend in the code And acctually I only needed 1 edge in the group. I did not know one could add the entities in an empty group. This is a lot better.

ThomThom thanks so much! Paul

That fixed the 'issue', thanks

Here it is,my first public plugin In some cases the intersections between solids can be considered as mistakes. Just select some SOLIDS and click the Solids Penetration Check from the Tools menu. The intersections between solids will be highlighted (selected) and colored red. What do you think about it?