@morisdov said: It would be nice if you can clearly and simply explain what is the problem your solution solves. Well I will try but maybe you don't see the problem as a problem! What you are doing is helping Sketchup modelers, what I am trying to do is to help John and Jane use Sketchup models to ease their daily toil (an idea relevant to this forum and good for modellers I think). At http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html Kevin Kelly explains that the Web used to be about linking computers, now it is linking pages but it is gradually restructuring to link data. Data belongs to physical things. And physical things can be represented by models. Not everyone needs models to do their work, but generally models are helpful, essential in a design where nothing else but a site and ideas exist. Ideas for things like baths can be represented by nouns, their generic names but they only become recognisably unique and useful when they have an address and some functionality; that is what a nameset gives them. If you believe data linking is the future (consider where Google is going before dismissing) then data must be accessible to all. In this case, it is crazy to enter a value in the VCP, if the only way to extract it is by using an exporter and passing it to "die" (unclickable) in an Excel cell. What would be good is a Sketchup method to trap such data and store it directly in plain text so that it can be automated to link up with other data on the Web, for example, a building design stored essentially as links to building products + their xyz's. @morisdov said: Components are organised in standard component libraries - your solution adds an [color=#008080][b]additional hierarchy tree to organise components ? A nameset does not add anything to Sketchup except the dialog with a few callbacks. It provides its own separate hierarchies by assembling names associated with specific tasks (one of Gaieus' digs perhaps). The association can be physical, temporal and so on, or a combination as a nameset can have devices to link and cross link. If the association is physical, the names can be used to pick up models and position them, if temporal the models can be animated. @morisdov said: Other 3D CAD tools have extensive RDBMS systems linked to them, decades old legacy and enrichment. Sketchup came very late to this party and it will not compete with the old monsters. Gee come on. This sounds like the senator who raved that man would not enter space until the next century (the year before Gagarin did), or the "toy" personal computer and monster mainframe, or hundreds of others similar. I never imagined you as a stick-in-the-mud. Please don't take offense, I am happy to discuss such things with you Chris

SketchyFFD does subdivide (well it really dices the model) and you can use it without using the FFD. It should preserve texture coords as well.

Thanks Fredo6 I knew I had to work with loops but wasnt sure of what to do. I have now found an example of how to do this in Didier's double_rectangle.rb tool Thanks again

I think there is a problem with Bryce. At first I was thinking about a problem with faces oriented components, but it's not true. Just Bryce !! Kiiiiill Bryyyyce So I erased bryce form the selection, and the code works.

can i get the center with point = boundingbox.center ?

Just to add my respect to all ruby coders sharing their work with others. A big THANK YOU from me too!

All right, I did so.

Hi Jim Very interesting topic. Your explanations give us the key for understanding Drawing process. We have now a little idea of 3D coding using Ruby in SU. You're welcome MALAISE

Thanks a lot Jim I really appreciate It's exactly what a number of us was waiting for. The tutorial leads you step by step in making-of. Now, I can go a step forward, having some ideas I wanted to test for a long while. Would you agree, I translate your tutorial in French ? MALAISE

Ah, I used Array.instance_methods but I see that it requires an agument of "true" to get the inherited and mix-in methods also. ( 98 methods ) (Array.instance_methods(true) - Object.methods).sort ["&", "*", "+", "-", "<<", "[]", "[]=", "all?", "any?", "assoc", "at", "clear", "collect", "collect!", "compact", "compact!", "concat", "cross", "delete", "delete_at", "delete_if", "detect", "distance", "distance_to_line", "distance_to_plane", "dot", "each", "each_index", "each_with_index", "empty?", "entries", "fetch", "fill", "find", "find_all", "first", "flatten", "flatten!", "grep", "index", "indexes", "indices", "inject", "insert", "join", "last", "length", "map", "map!", "max", "member?", "min", "nitems", "normalize", "normalize!", "offset", "offset!", "on_line?", "on_plane?", "pack", "partition", "pop", "project_to_line", "project_to_plane", "push", "rassoc", "reject", "reject!", "replace", "reverse", "reverse!", "reverse_each", "rindex", "select", "shift", "size", "slice", "slice!", "sort", "sort!", "sort_by", "to_ary", "transform", "transform!", "transpose", "uniq", "uniq!", "unshift", "values_at", "vector_to", "x", "x=", "y", "y=", "z", "z=", "zip", "|"]

Merci Matthieu! That was it.

Cant seem to find a "Contact us" on there website anywhere. Do you know of any direct links to contact them

I think the move idea explained above is neat for certain things, but not for others. I draw a lot of custom cabinets, and I draw them as separate board pieces making up the cabinet. Each board is a component by itself. This means I can easily edit the parent component and grad a child component and move it, but the other child components are no longer "glued" to the component being moved, and hence they do not strecth while moving the one child. It also means I have to individually grab the child pieces and "stretch" them (push pull) to "touch" the side moved. This would include doors, with maybe raised panels. Now I need to scale the cabinet in width and maybe depth, but I do not want my door stiles to change depth or width, nor do I want any of the boards to change thickness, same goes for the bevels on the raised panel. I've attached a Cabinet with glass shelves and the right side already moved to illustrate the issue. [image: zSgj_GlassShelveCab.jpg]

@marian said: Could this script be made to make other shapes, like asteroids, craters, generic airplanes stuff like that? I also dreamed about that, Marian. But not for now.

Wow Thank you Didier ! I will read that !!! Excellent work... I Didon't know this script !

@kgon said: Excelent plants and shrubs solo......where did u get them ????? Solo have even made these available for you in the Tropical flora thread...

Yes, I ment the graph equation tool. But the projected distance equation will be very difficult I think. So a script like you suggested would be great! Thankyou so far.

perfect. exactly what I was looking for. Cheers

fantastic,thankyou very much both

@cxx said: Hi everybody ! Here's my question : is there a plugin to create gears / cogs ? (I would like to play with SketchyPhysics...) (I'm french, so don't be too "english" !!! ) Thanks a lot ! There is one plugin that I know of, and it's here: http://www.ohyeahcad.com/download/