@honoluludesktop said: Thanks Dan, will follow up here with progress. Hi all. I'm the user in question. So, I literally just discovered that the crashing seems occur only when I push the escape key to dismiss the splash screen. I have not had any problems in the past few minutes, so this may not be an issue at all with the plugin. It seems to happen even if I don't have the plugin installed. The reason I wasn't getting this after reinstalling is that SU required me to pick a template, so the escape key didn't work. How about that?

Awhile back, I noticed some quirky behaviour when trying to use innerHTML (on PC with IE7.) I think I switched to using innerText instead and that worked. If you are not actually inserting any HTML tags within the target element, I would say use innerText instead. I have not tested this yet since I upgraded to IE8, (and forget now even what it was I was working on, when I had the problems.) Anyway... FYI, just a note on innerText vs innerHTML.

Those characters are both Ruby operators and instance method names. Use the String concate method + to add those chars (which must be quoted.) my_string = 'Some special string' + ' > ' + 'the last part of the string.' or you can use replacement within double-quoted string: my_string = "The value: #{biggernum.to_s} > #{smallernum.to_s}" where biggernum and smallernum are numeric references. The 3rd way is to use the Integer instance method chr if you know the character's ordinal within the UTF-8 set. Since decimal 60 is the ordinal for "less than" ... 60.chr returns the single char string "<"

Thanks

I changed two linkes to get the os x 10.6 bundled ruby 1.8.7 (patchlevel 174) Also for me everything seems to work. cd /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/A mv Resources Resources.back mv Ruby Ruby.back ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/Resources Resources ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/Current/Ruby Ruby to change back: cd /Applications/Google SketchUp 8/SketchUp.app/Contents/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/A rm Resources rm Ruby mv Resources.back Resources mv Ruby.back Ruby

Too many variables. How would you for instance determine a harddrive's interface speed, and whether the write cache is on? If you want worstcase, then you could use old PATA speed of 33Mb/s, but most newer computers will have PATA of 100Mb/s. If the computer is late model, and has a SATA drive, the speeds can be up in the 3 .. 6 Gb/s range. So.. the easiest way would be to have the user fill in a WebDialog form for this info. They you would multiply width x height in pixels, by say 24bits each to get a approximate size for the image (if a BMP,) then divide by the interface speed. Estimating compressed format sizes (like GIF and JPEG,) will be much harder, but you might be able find some equations out on the web. (Then of course, there is extra processing time for the image to be compressed.) Sketchup uses PaintLib, an Open Source library. Perhaps there are some speed data on the PaintLib author's website?

I know there are numerous 3rd party apps that can achieve the UV solutions SU lacks, however I really like the Ptex system. I guess I'm hoping for a SU solution still, without needing to add more apps to my workflow, export, import, just a simple, easy solution.

Thanks, Dan. Your advice was very useful. I could have lost a lot of time on the other schemes which I referred to. The 'Programming Ruby' book by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt looks interesting. Downloaded the .so extension modules, installed them and run a Ruby console session: >require 'win32ole' true >ppt = WIN32OLE.new("PowerPoint.Application") #<WIN32OLE;0x11396c58> >ppt.Activate nil That's it: PowerPoint was activated, so I'm ready to use PPT automation in a SU script as desired. Really elegant. This scheme depends on the WIN32OLE extension written by Masaki Suketa. Can anybody give me advice on standard procedures for installation of such extensions on the machines of SU users. My post had another aspect: We are now capable of using Ruby as a client for Windows Automation. What about the other direction. Can SU be extended to become an automation server?

If locating the faces is sufficient, you can start with my code here. Just noticed that there is a link to Chris's post too.

[image: hippo_bump.jpg]

Thanks - works perfectly.

@dan rathbun said: I actually have the bridge files installed in a common dir: %(#000000)[C:\Program Files\Google\TBD\SU_Bridge] .. and then I put a bridge_ext.rb file in each Plugin dir of the SU versions, that loads the files from the common dir. That way SUB.EXE is always in the same place, and you do not need to change the path to it within Notepad++ regardless of whatever version of Sketchup is loaded. [attachment=0:1pazsmqa]<!-- ia0 -->bridge_ext.rb<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:1pazsmqa] This is excellent way, and it 's greatness solution ,thanks for your kindly help

Thank you for your suggestion. I have however in increasing desperation and frustration found a solution that seems to work. Downloaded a trial version of Deep Exploration, a notorious 3d conversion program. To my great surprise it does the job very fast! Opening my very complex model takes about 3 minutes, but then exporting a pdf or ai files takes about 30 seconds. And judging from what I have seen so far, the output is flawless. Literally tens of thousands of lines are outputted almost instantly. I am happy! So this is just an advice for other users with the same demands I have. Deep Exploration seems to be able to do it.

@unknownuser said: @unknownuser said: Right - so if I make a wrapper that will refresh after a given max interval - otherwise invalidate - that would be an ok method? by using that you dont address the problem because you dont take in account system draw. but it can be used as workaround. So skip the view.invalidate all together?

As Dan pointed out UI.start_timer works pretty good with UDP. Here's how I'd write it: require 'socket' serverSocket = UDPSocket.new serverSocket.bind("127.0.0.1", 3157) timer_id = UI.start_timer(0.1, true) { begin data = socket.recvfrom_nonblock(100) new_message = true rescue Errno;;EWOULDBLOCK new_message = false rescue Errno;;ECONNRESET new_message = false UI.stop_timer @timer_id break end if new_message == true UI.messagebox(data) end } The major different is the UI.start_timer in place of the "Thread" and "Loop" in your example. You'll also see that it uses .recvfrom_nonblock with some error catching instead of just .recvfrom. This is because sketchup will hang if nothing is sent to the socket. If you're sure that there will be a constant stream of data you might be able to get it to work with blocking.

of course this forum

@lothcat said: @dan rathbun said: FYI: There is a missing ) in line 5 of the snippet. D'oh! Thank you! I was so sure I was using this wrong that I didn't even look for actual coding errors. Usually the Ruby error tells you what line of the code that the error is in, and echos that erroneous line. Also it may print an extra line beneath the erroneous line with a caret symbol pointing at where it thinks the error is. Not always helpful, as it may just point at the end of the code line if the parser doesn't really know, for instance, where the missing ")" symbol should go. And.. a syntax error IS a coding error, most often missing delimiters, brackets, etc.

Thanks TIG

Thomas You really need to learn to crawl before you walk... You expect 'random lines of code' to be interpreted for you ! Please structure your questions a little more friendly... width, height = results presumably this follows a UI.inputbox that results= ? There were two answers... width & height ?? pts = tl[0].vertices sets an array called 'pts' to be the vertices related to the first element in the array tl - as it's not named logically that couls be a list of faces OR edges... i = 0 sets a reference called 'i' to be 0 [this is used later in the '.each do' loop ??? pts2 = [] Makes an empty array called 'pts2' - presumably this will be filled with elements later... pts.each do |pt| pts2[i] = pt.position + [0 , 0 , results[1]] i = i +1 end This process the vertices in 'pts' [it would've been better to call it 'verts' ??] And for each vertex [pt !!!] it returns its position as a 3d-point BUT swaps its z-value for whatever the results[1] was = probably the 'height' so why wasn't 'height' used ?? line_copy = entities.add_line pts2 Tis makes a line in [whatever] 'entities' [is] using the array 'pts2' as the 2 points - these have had their z values set to 'height'... pts_copy = line_copy.vertices This sets the array 'pts_copy' to be the vertices used by the edge 'line_copy' ??? i = 0 j = 0 sets the references 'i' and 'j' to 0 new_face = entities.add_face(pts[0], pts_copy[0], pts_copy[1], pts[1]) This sets the reference 'new_face' to be the face [if any] that is made using the 4 points listed [if they are not coplanar it will fail!] new_face.pushpull (width / 2) It pushpulls the 'new_face' by half of the 'width [i.e. results[0] set earlier] Do NOT leave a gap between the 'pushpull' and its argument in parentheses [i.e face.pushpull(xxx) NEVER face.pushpull (xxx)] model.commit_operation end This closes the 'operation' and 'end's something - presumably the ' def zid' ? You must have a model.start_operation("MyTool") to 'close' it later... [ruby:1dtqmkst]if( not file_loaded?("zid.rb") ) UI.menu("Plugins").add_item("Zid") { zid } end file_loaded("zid.rb")[/ruby:1dtqmkst] This makes the Plugins menu item a called '[ruby:1dtqmkst]Zid[/ruby:1dtqmkst]' which in turn runs the [ruby:1dtqmkst]def[/ruby:1dtqmkst] called '[ruby:1dtqmkst]zid[/ruby:1dtqmkst]' ??? The [ruby:1dtqmkst]file_loaded[/ruby:1dtqmkst] parts need you to have a [ruby:1dtqmkst]require 'sketchup.rb'[/ruby:1dtqmkst] earlier and ensure that only one menu item appears even if you manually reload the script into the same SKP session...

Is this what you wanted revised stairsfms2.rb