I hope Mr. Someone comes back and finished the job...

Where is the Su2SmallPt.rb :-), Nice post.

Updated all of the tests so only load is not built in methods... http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=188743#p188743

Martin is/was making it far too complex... it even converted the group to a pointless component ? KISS... Jim's example is the better way to do it... Explode the group at the end if desired...

Not something you can make changes to existing tools. But when creating your own tool it should be possible.

Again, I have to recommend Firebug Lite. It has a full featured Javascript console plus HTML DOM and CSS browsers. It works on IE, Safari, Firefox and Chrome and you can add it to any HTML doc with only one (long) line: <a href="javascript&#058;var firebug=document.createElement('script');firebug.setAttribute('src','http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/1.2/firebug-lite-compressed.js');document.body.appendChild(firebug);(function(){if(window.firebug.version){firebug.init();}else{setTimeout(arguments.callee);}})();void(firebug);">Firebug Lite</a> http://getfirebug.com/lite.html

I think CouchDB is an interesting project, too.

Thanks Fredo. I've taken an interests into Bèzier patches. And while I could easily produce a patch using the @Last bezier.rb, I wanted to try to understand more about how it worked technically. That way I could eventually improve the method I use to create the patch, as at the moment I'm not sure if it's efficient the way I do it. But yea, Bèzier curves are really cool. Thanks for your feedback Fredo.

Sorry, was a response to this post ...... Jim Global Moderator Posts: 2091 Joined: Mon Nov 12, 2007 10:13 pm Name: Jim Foltz Operating system: XP Pro SP3 SketchUp version: Google Pro 7.1 .....but the thoughts are free - also my finewood

Better indeed

@thomthom said: @tig said: Thomthom Grumpy... I came across grumpy? The English phrase is you were 'terse' [avvisende]... or 'a little short' [litt kort]... just like your old school teacher might be when you ask a seemingly stupid question or you are doing something that is obviously not right [to him] AND he has a hangover etc etc

... tr=Geom::Transformation.new(group.transformation.origin) instance=group.entities.add_instance(definition,tr) or work out where the insertion_point is relative to the group's origin something like... insertion_point=[x,y,z] insertion_point.transform!(group.transformation.inverse)###??? tr=Geom::Transformation.new(group.insertion_point) instance=group.entities.add_instance(definition,tr) A group's origin is at ORIGIN [0,0,0] even when it's miles away so you need to move any insert backwards ? This is untried but my first thoughts...

http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=44671#p44671

@chris fullmer said: I don't quite understand what that means. What is bitwise? Think in binary, then compare them column for column. It's a logical, bit-to-bit comparison. 5 in binary is 101 6 in binary is 110 5 & 6 is; logical AND each column (bit position) Columns ________________ | 1 | 0 | 1 <- decimal 5 | and | and | and | 1 | 1 | 0 <- decimal 6 ================= 1 0 0 so 101 & 110 = 100 <- decimal 4 The masks are constants, which are set to some convenient values: # I just made these up 001 = CONSTRAIN_MASK 010 = ALT_MASK 100 = COPY_MASK So if the flag is decimal value 7: 111 <- decimal 7 In order to check the CONSTRAIN_MASK, you logical AND the CONSTRAIN_MASK with the flag value: 111 <- flag value decimal 7 & 001 <- contain mask constant ====== 001 <- CONSTRAIN_MASK set true or in real ruby as Thomas wrote; contrain_key_down = ((flags & CONSTRAIN_MODIFIER_MASK) == CONSTRAIN_MODIFIER_MASK) copy_key_down = ((flags & COPY_MODIFIER_MASK) == COPY_MODIFIER_MASK) alt_key_down = ((flags & ALT_MODIFIER_MASK) == ALT_MODIFIER_MASK) Although Adam B might know a clever way to decode them all in one elegant statement.

well in the end, I've had to mix and match some thoughts from this thread. I realized that I can ont doa simple rotation or scaling because in my case, I have to scale using the components local axis. If their axis is set on one of the sides of the component, I want it to rotate or scae around that axis, not the boundingbox centerpoint. So I just threw in a way to determine the the center of the component on the local z axis. Had to account for component z-scaling AND if the axis was set somewhere inside the component (not at the very bottom for example). All in all, I've got it working like a charm now (I think!). It will be in the next component stringer. Chris

Attached is the Baker article in black text on a white page. I've read it and it makes almost complete sense. What was the "glRotate" he referred to? Is that openGL? Does that help us? I've read Wiki (gone thru the words one at a time, anyway) and it is dense. Went to Wiki's Transformation Matrix article and it was unreadable. I left a message to that effect on the talk page. If you go there, please move my message to the bottom of the talk page (where I should have put it) and add another message re "how about writing for folks who didn't get a PhD in math?" change the extension back to html (board doesn't allow ULing HTML).

@tig said: My recent update ExtrudeEdgesByRailsalso scales the Edges-Profile between the rails, rotating and scaling the profile to suit the gap between the [apprortioned] nodes of the rails... Cool. Will have a look at it.

ThomThom, you rock! That took care of the issue on this model. Thank you so much and have a Happy Thanksgiving! C

I like that one Jim.

Having slept on this... An Entity that is part of a Definition's Entities is a single 'thing'. Instances of this Definition can be 'placed' within the Entities of a Model or even those of other Definition. Instances are themselves 'Entities'... These Instances are simply 'markers' and refer to the Definition - they have no 'contents' of their own. Any properties that this Entity has [like visibility, material, layer etc] are set within the Definition's Entities and cannot be changed on an Instance by Instance basis as they don't exist. Any Instance of the Definition containing this Entity can have individual properties [like visibility, material, layer etc] - some of these might even get reflected down the nesting - like 'material' which when changed on the Instance will affect the appearance of any contained Entities which have their material=nil, however the 'visible' property does not filter down. Visible/hidden Entities within a Definition [that is seen as an Instance] remain visible/hidden independent of each Instance's 'visible' state - however, if the container Instance is 'hidden' then you cannot see it, and by logic you cannot see its contents - irrespective of whether or not they are visible/hidden within the Definition itself. This is a logical setup. Let's say you have Entity called A [an Entity is unique, but of course it might itself be just one Instance of a Definition]. 'A' is within a Definition and there are 6 Instances of this Definition within an Entities set. 2 of these Instances are visible the other 4 are not. Thus you can only 'see' 2 representations of A. However, there are 6 representations of A 'available' in the scheme of things - so, how do you get the number of visible A's ? Remember you can't refer to a particular A in a particular Instance because there is only one A and that's inside the Definition. If you mined down into the contents of every Definition in the Model to find A you will eventually get just one parent Definition returned because every Entity is unique - however, if A were an Instance then finding its Definition and then that Definition's Instances would give us a list of all Instances equivalent to A - however, they are NOT A itself, but a list of Instances of A's Definition - we can't confuse Entity-A and Definition-of-Instance-A - this would just make it more complicated to find them all, but it's not impossible. For now let's assume we have a simple Entity A, and we have its parent Definition, we can now find a list of all of that Definition's Instances, and then from this list we can get lists of all of those Instances that are visible/hidden. Thus we can say that Entity A exists 6 times in the Entities set, that it is visible 2 time and that it is hidden 4 time, simply by looking at the lists we just made of the parent Definition's Instances visibility. Since we know which are the Instances displaying A we can find each of their locations and thus the location of the 'ghost' of A within them, since we know where A is inside the Instance's Definition... However, if Entity A were hidden in its Definition then it would be always hidden in every Instance we looked at, so in that case, irrespective of the containing Definition's Instance visibility, A is 'hidden' in all 6 cases even when its container is visible... Not sure much of this is of any practical use...