b='hop' is the same as: b=String::new('hop') The Ruby interpreter "reads" the literal string 'hop' and passes it to String::new "behind the curtain". = is the reference assignment operator. a="hip" means "the variable a shall reference the string object 'hip'." a=b means "the variable a shall reference the object that b is referencing."

Hello MartinRinehart, I take the opportunity of your thread to thank you for the Edges to Rubies you link in your signature. I found out your tutorial some month ago and pages 15 and 16 made me on the track of animation. Just what I needed to jump into and now I am developing my own code I have just named a class the same of your 'Transformable' in your honour. It's quit different from your but the name makes me remember your excellent tutorial. A thousand of thanks once more. Have a good day Sorry for the sidetrack. Second time today!

You're right about the sidetrack but it's just a small piece of distraction in a flow of coding! and we are not so far from Sketchup as you may see on that website I made for fun. I am a woodworker hobbyist and never get money from woodworking as I spent all my spare time making small furniture for myself - not enough free time for the others! Besides the ruby code I am writing these days is a continuation of the pictures on the website that I would like to animate. May it turn to any plugin ? wait and see... Have a good late afternoon

@jim said: "A".ord http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.0.0/String.html#method-i-ord Thanks for the info and especially the link.

This code is not exhaustively tested, but it should give you enough ideas: model = Sketchup.active_model model.start_operation('Unglue', true) insts = model.selection.grep(Sketchup;;ComponentInstance) insts.each{|inst| inst.glued_to= nil } model.commit_operation One step undo-able... It un-glues all selected component-instances.

@sonjachr said: Many Thanks, this works, I really appreciate your help! I feel ashamed as I should have found the solution by myself. I will try to work harder on my Sketchup/Ruby knowledge, but I will never become an expert as you are. Great, glad I could help.

Thanks for that guys. I managed to get a hack working by compiling/installing onto my standalone Ruby and copying the needed Nokogiri files and folders across.

The last error is the result of the quirky implementation of Sketchup::Console class. (It is not a subclass of IO, but should have been.) Try some other way of testing your results. UI.messagebox or a webdialog.

very much appreciated, thanks for the detailed response

@sawdust_online said: Nevertheless I would have liked to save that bunch of files without blocking SU, webdialog box or not. what type of files are you saving? images, components? I think you can you the same approach as the two geometry making versions I posted... @unknownuser said: the following code seems to do the job! what's your take about it ? may it lead to crash ? for a mac it would be better if you used RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /(darwin)/ ? @dlg.show_modal() ; @dlg.show() bring_to_front doesn't achieve the same thing unless it was show_modal before the any focus change... I don't see why you need the timer, any short wait will happen anyway while the file is being written... BTW. sleep(0.25) will work the same as, but looks more like ruby than the fractional floats to me... john

Read up: http://www.sketchup.com/intl/en/developer/docs/classes.php When you add an instance you apply an initial transformation, but you can do more transforming later... A group is a special kind of component. For now let's assume a component existe. So let's assume you have a component-definition containing your 'box' with a reference to it called ' compodef'. Let's assume the references: model = Sketchup_active_model ents = model.active_entities Let's also deal with just one curve, for now... Let's assume you have a reference to just one of the edges that form it, called ' edge'. Let's also assume you'll place instances at its nodes - i.e. the edges' 'end' points. curve = edge.curve vertices = curve.vertices points = [] vertices.each{|v| points << v.position } now you have an array of the points defining the curve. points.each{|point| tran = Geom::Transformation.new(point) instance = ents.add_instance{ compodef, tran } } now you have an instance of the component 'box' located at every node point of the curve... This is a simplified explanation... At least should get you started... If you want to 'swivel' each box to span between the nodes in one curve and the equivalent node in a second curve, then you need to assemble two arrays of points - says points1 and points2 You iterate thus: ` points1.each_with_index{|point1, i| tranp = Geom::Transformation.new(point1) instance = ents.add_instance{ compodef, tranp } length = instance.bounds.length now get the second point point2 = points2[i] dist = point1.distance(point2) scale the box scalex = dist / length trans = Geom::Transformation.scaling(point1, scalex, 1.0, 1.0) instance.transform!(trans) rotate the box vec = point1.vector_to(point2) angle = X_AXIS.angle_between(vec) axis = X_AXIS.cross(vec) ### might be reversed - check ? trana = Geom::Transformation.rotation(point1, axis, angle) instance.transform!(trana) }` this is untested but should give you some ideas... It places the instance scales it so it'll stretch between the two points and the rotates the box so it spans between the two points. Obviously you need to do more work - like making the box component, checking the curve points for 'direction' and count-match etc... Good luck...

I don't have any code right now, I will once I have access to it though, which should be in a couple of days. The general procedure works like this though. Before anything else, I store the initial orientation by making an axes type Transformation. Something like this if memory serves well : xaxis_ = cInst.transformation.xaxis yaxis_ = cInst.transformation.yaxis zaxis_ = cInst.transformation.zaxis @transform = Geom;;Transformation.axes(Geom;;Point3d.new(0,0,0),Geom;;Vector3d.new(xaxis_.x,xaxis_.y,xaxis_.z),Geom;;Vector3d.new(yaxis_.x,yaxis_.y,yaxis_.z),Geom;;Vector3d.new(zaxis_.x,zaxis_.y,zaxis_.z)) The translations to move to and from the origin are created using the center of the bounds of the component. The origin to object axes are also calculated with an axes type Transformation. I use the inverse to return from global to local. The rotation part of the external transformation is created from an array, with indices 3, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14 set to 0 and index 15 set to 1. Said array comes from extracting numbers from a string. I thought there might be some bug or some accuracy loss here, but it's a double to float conversion on mostly small numbers, and checking the orthogonality of the rotation component gives no error before the 12th digit. The translation part (which is global, not relative to the component, btw) is used to make a vector used to make a Transformation. I've had the skewing even when this was 0, though. And then it goes like this : -Store initial transformation. When transformation is received : -move to origin -switch from object to origin axes -Compensate the initial transformation if there is one. -Apply rotation -apply the inverse of the initial transformation -go to object axes -Apply translation (global) -Move back from the origin Granted, it's not the best workflow. However, given the accuracy I seem to have on the sole matrix that isn't created within SU, I don't understand how the skewing happens, particularly when multiplying all these external matrices together yields an error that is so tiny.

@tig said: Googling 'dxf reference guide' return lots of interesting hits - e.g. http://www.autodesk.com/techpubs/autocad/acadr14/dxf/dxf_reference.htm Also there are several RB file plugins in the PluginStore which do DXF import/export manipulation - so using those as 'cribs' would help too... So what more do you want ? Thanks for this... i did a lot of search, but I guess I used the wrong keywords ) never found this. Thanks a lot.

@blruuska said: Dan, Thanks for verifying. It is surprising that NotImplementedError wasn't raised, if that is the case here. Ackh! Yea, something is amiss here. Not sure if we intended to support enumeration type in the initial release of the API - but if that's the cause it should have been NotImplemented. However, I might confuse this with the "choice" type. Maybe something changed in the last moment. I need to investigate.

@dan rathbun said: @ziocleto said: The strong typization of Point3d and Vector3d is also very questionable as ... And this why the SketchUp API authors made both classes "compatible" with a basic 3 element array, ... OH.. also.. there is another way they could have gone for this particular method. And that is duck-typing the argument, instead of class-typing it. Ruby example (they are really implemented on the C-side): <span class="syntaxdefault">def </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">+(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">arg</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">  raise</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">TypeError</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">,</span><span class="syntaxstring">"invalid&nbsp;argument&nbsp;type"</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">,</span><span class="syntaxdefault">caller</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> unless<br />  </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> arg</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">respond_to</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">?(;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">x</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">&&<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">    arg</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">respond_to</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">?(;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">y</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">&&<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">    arg</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">respond_to</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">?(;</span><span class="syntaxdefault">z</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">||<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">  </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">(</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> arg</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">.</span><span class="syntaxdefault">respond_to</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">?(;[])</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">&&</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> </span><span class="syntaxcomment"># be sure it has 3 members<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">    arg</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">[</span><span class="syntaxdefault">0</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">].</span><span class="syntaxdefault">is_a</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">?(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">Numeric</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> rescue false </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">&&<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">    arg</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">[</span><span class="syntaxdefault">1</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">].</span><span class="syntaxdefault">is_a</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">?(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">Numeric</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> rescue false </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">&&<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">    arg</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">[</span><span class="syntaxdefault">2</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">].</span><span class="syntaxdefault">is_a</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">?(</span><span class="syntaxdefault">Numeric</span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)</span><span class="syntaxdefault"> rescue false </span><span class="syntaxkeyword">)<br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">    </span><span class="syntaxcomment"># rescue modifiers trap IndexError exceptions<br /><br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">  </span><span class="syntaxcomment"># the method body<br /><br /></span><span class="syntaxdefault">end</span> If you are only concerned with Ruby 2.0+, then you can use a refinement module to correct the method for you code only.

Thanks TIG and Dan I applied the code to the Tails part of my Dovetail Tool and now the result is a part with tails that is still a solid. No left over edges or faces. The strange thing was that when selecting the component edges if you selected them clockwise (edge1 to edge2) the part was clean but selecting in a counter clockwise direction there were left over faces. Now thanks to your help edge selection direction works either way. Thanks Keith

@tig said: I don't have time to dissect your code in detail... But it seems to me you are replicating my Latticeizer plugin ? Look at that... http://sketchucation.com/pluginstore?pln=Latticeizer You need to offset the perimeters of the edges' faces [which sometimes fails, just like native-offset - so it perhaps needs my Smart_Offset?] It's NOT easy... Don't waste your time dissecting it since this is a just for fun exercise. I have found a number of bugs but have a few more to go. I have no intention of publishing it since, as you say, there is Latticeizer and others already out there.

SketchUp 2014 was bugged in this regard. The workaround was to pipe to a text file, I think. I think it was fixed in SketchUp 2015. I recall having written a patch script that overrode the Kernel.backquote method. (I have to have a look for it.)

A good question for: http://forums.chaosgroup.com/

@wawmsey7 said: However it would be easier if I could have code before the code for loading the component to check if it's already loaded or not into the model and then load it if it's not already there? Is that do-able? You need to search the DefinitionList collection properly. This class, like many of the API collection classes, has the Enumerable library module mixed in. The following method should be wrapped within your plugin module: def self.get_component( filepath = "some/path/to/component.skp" ) # Warning, on MS Windows the definition paths are # returned with backslashes not forward slashes ! filepath = filepath.tr("\\",'/') dlist = Sketchup.active_model.definitions found = dlist.find {|cdef| if cdef.path.nil? false elsif cdef.path.tr("\\",'/') == filepath true else false end } return found if found if File.exist?(filepath) dlist.load(filepath) else return false end end