@thomthom said: Do you stuff in the Tool's activate callback. That should trigger after deactivate. Initialize triggers when you create the tool instance - not when it's activated. You can reuse a tool instance - where activate is the one that will trigger when your tool activates. (How do you activate the tools btw? model.select_tool or model.tools.push_tool ?) Hi Thomthom. Man, such a stupid error of me. I did use the initialize method instead of the activate method. Btw, I use select_tool ToolName.new Thanks for the answer, funny I didn't saw the error myself

You have to save the view's camera properties to a new Sketchup::Camera instance, then restore it. view = Sketchup.active_model.active_view vcam = view.camera props = [vcam.eye,vcam.target,vcam.up,vcam.perspective?] cam = Sketchup;;Camera.new(*props) view.zoom_extents view.camera= cam

Mistry with win7 zip files solved!!! Some how my folder option to hide known extensions was selected and this created the problem making a ziped file a ziped folder. I know I had nothing to do with that change as it took me a long time to find Folder Options after I started looking for them. Keith

I wrote this last year http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=371243#p371243 'ShadowProjector' If calculates shadows cast on faces and % area etc [image: lCSs_ShadowProjector_Example.PNG]

If that's Ruby, then I love Ruby too! Thanks Dan. I perused the book, and as someone who hasn't a clue it looked to me like it is well written, and should be easy for the beginner to get a grasp.

Yes it should, and now is. Updated the code. (I was uniq!'ing in the calling methods, and at the last moment replaced several in those methods, by adding the .uniq! to the return statement. I did think about which uniq to use, for a split-second, and didn't want to create a new array object, so I added ! to the end. That's what happens when ya' rush.) Thanx for the check TIG!

Did you read the "linetool.rb" file in the "Examples" directory ??

Here's a start. Rename the module or cut & paste the proxy class block into one of your modules. module Sort class << self def sort_faces_by_vertex() @sel = Sketchup.active_model.selection.to_a @sel.delete_if {|e| not e.is_a?(Sketchup;;Face) } @sel.sort! {|a,b| ([a.vertices.min{|v1,v2| v1.position.x <=> v2.position.x }.position.x, a.vertices.min{|v1,v2| v1.position.y <=> v2.position.y }.position.y] <=> [b.vertices.min{|v1,v2| v1.position.x <=> v2.position.x }.position.x, b.vertices.min{|v1,v2| v1.position.y <=> v2.position.y }.position.y] ) } end def assign_room_nums_to_faces() sbv = sort_faces_by_vertex() sbv.each_with_index {|face,i| dict = face.attribute_dictionary('Properties',true) dict['name']= "Room #{(i+1).to_s}" } end end # proxy class end # module Sort

@sdmitch said: There is always a way but at what cost. The code would no doubt expand from 3 lines to 3000. I'm on a framerate sensitive medium, so anything I can do to improve frame rate would be useful. It would be great if you have any tips on how to set the LOD for the miniature.

@thomthom said: @dan rathbun said: So mitcorb, no you can NOT edit them by accident when they are hidden (singly or globally.) All though they still update. Yes.. if associative and their anchor points are moved or changed. I'm not sure about styling fonts, etc. I suppose you can still access them via an entities collection... and I wonder if you could FORCE them into the selection set without crashing the application.

so I take it I'm covered with Your cleanup tools... kool.

FYI... I have a bug issue logged that Sketchup::read_default() cannot return DWORD values. Basically the method assumes anything you want to read was written with Sketchup::write_default(), which inspects objects into evaluatable strings before storing them. So.. Sketchup::read_default() is stupid and always tries to run the stored values back through Ruby's eval() without Type checking. When a error occurs it seems the method's rescue block just returns nil. So you'll need to use the WIN32OLE class ("win32ole.so" file,) and the Windows Scripting Host interface to read registry values. See: [Plugin Library] Win32API and Win32OLE so files

I note there are 7 other settings that are positive, and begin with the prefix "Display".. and one positive that begins with the prefix "Show"... The lack of convention is annoying.

@thomthom said: That seem to work perfectly! Excellent! 4 trys is the charm. Man, I love Ruby's flexibility!

Thank you very much TIG for the prompt and in depth reply. There is a lot of info to digest and I will try it out. Thank you again.

amazing how easy things are sometimes. guess i have a long way to go thanks! D

Probably will.. when I get back a Win7 notebook that needs to go back to Dell for a HD replacement & OS reimage.

Off topic: @unknownuser said: (1) The word useful has only 1 "L", by the way. thanx for your correction, the English language is not my mother language as you might have noticed.. /Off topic All code is safe now and my code works like a charm, so thanx for your help. And yes I SHALL read the book before I come here and ask questions like this..

An object of what you mean is a Sketchup Drawingelement. If the Drawingelement is a Face, Edge, ArcCurve or Curve, it will have a method to get all vertices, and for each vertex you can get the position (which is what you want): positions = face.vertices.map{|v| v.position} If the Drawingelement is a Group, ComponentInstance of Image, it is "a model" in the model any you have to loop over the contained entities: group.parent.entities.find_all{|e| e.respond_to?(:vertices) }. map{|e| e.vertices.map{|v| v.position} }.flatten or with component.definition.entities

Why are you asking again? I already responded a week or so ago... http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=47043