wow, looks good, exactly what i was looking for. YAY, cant wait for the final product. Can you let me know when you have mastered that. Man i wish i could do that, youre really talented! Bravo

The most common reason for a bounded region not closing with a face is that there is a small, nearly invisible (until you zoom in) edge sticking out into the plane of the face you want to create. Once that edge is erased, MakeFaces (or overdrawing a bounding edge) will create the face. StrayLines can help with the task of getting rid of those edges.

Hi Vodka, are you still with us here ? How's Modo ? Your plugin works great even with v2 and plugin 2.4 of Maxwell. Actually it works better than expected since I no longer autoMXM and export using your plugin. SU materials are imported into Studio with their original SU names but with the MXM settings as assigned. Even the default material is not exported when using your plugin. All very handy. One fashion request, could you make the plugin panel a lot smaller ? SU panels and text's are a little less big. Although I use a 30" screen your panel takes a good chunck of it.... Tx again Francois

@remus said: So basically you want the plugin to make all connected geometry a group? @remus, absolutely. this is what i want. @chris and TIG, my thanks and apologies to both of you. i kind of suspected some of you would have created a similar script. i did not find any of them because i ran a search here at SCF for "group" and "groups". it returned nothing because in chris' case the script is elsewhere and in TIG's the word is not isolated in the name of the script. apart from that, there are so many scripts around (and in my HD) that finding one without remembering its name is not always easy... @TIG, i do not see the extra step as a problem as most of the time i do not want to group all connected geometry but specific groups. once more, thanks to both.

LOL...nothing but fun on here! Love it...

I think you want something that optimizes the size of a box that will contain other boxes - rather like a sheet cutting optimizer to ensure minimal waste of a sheet of material cut into your sub-pieces... It wouldn't be that difficult IF the sub-shapes were 'boxes' - it they're not then it could use their bounding boxes but that wouldn't always be efficient. There's no built in 'clash-detection'... Is the optimization to be on total volume or plan size of the containing box ? Perhaps someone has some embryonic tools ?

I try to install the BZ_Arc_plugin. I've download the ruby and dropped it into the BZ_Dir_12 folder. It works . But it is impossible to download the icon-files. In the attachment they are light grey and don't react. What am I doing wrong ??? Hans

@jim said: Al, would you mind splitting this trace code off to its own thread? It's useful, and being in its own thread would make it easier to find. Thanks. Will do

TIG: Thank you. It works. Don't ask me why. Your and my code are identical with the exception of a couple of blank lines. I checked that twice and then again. And side by side. And then again. And I have no idea. But it its working. I added input for xyz coordinates as you can see on the image. The crinkled surface was distorted only along the z axis, the top plane of the cube was distorted in three dimensions. This is just for fun. Please use at your own risk and save before using. It crashed on me a couple of times already. Thank you much for all your time. G [image: k3UM_xyz_distort_examples.jpg] gl_xyzdistort.rb

if there was a way to retrieve the bitmap information, that might be a gread addition to the component spray tool distribution by bitmap...

@gaieus said: Looking forward to the results - really curious how it works. Hi there, Just got back to this today. The code worked really well thanks Tig. Attached is the sketchup file I used to create the trees from LIDAR Its a bit fiddly but the result could be useful. More could be done to change the nature of the component to get a feel for different tree types. Use the layers to turn off the constructino points to see what the trees look like. Note I havent done all the trees. I added very basic lines as trunks and this helps visualise the tree a bit better. Remember these are New Zealand trees so they might look different to yours. Cheers. SU7.1 file

TIG also has an x-ref stlye plugin. I have not used it, but I understand its pretty good. Chris

Martin, I've found your VisMap Tool really useful. ......... However, I've hit a possible bug when running it on one particular (massive) model. This model contains 174 Layers, 46 Scenes (Large No of Layers Mainly Due to XRef'd Components). ........... Error messages attached. I'm using the latest VisMapPro version, but I also get the same error message with the previous version of VisMap ......... I'm running this script after opening the file - no scenes / layers have been edited so its nothing to do with scenes not being updated. Initially I thought it might be a conflict with Xref'd Components (TIGs wonderful script). But I've eliminated that as I can get VisMap to run with other skp files that have Xref'd components. .......... Unfortunately, it won't be possible for me to send u a copy of the troublesome skp file, but if you get the chance to have a look at attached error msg files, or if you've come across this with other skp files I'd be interested. Anything you can do, much appreciated. .......... Thanks once again for producing your fantastic script. Regards Howard Leslie [image: nnkr_Err_Msg.jpg] [image: 6Vw6_Debug_Msg.jpg]

A combination of Erase-Coplanar-Edges and the Remove-Inner-Faces, then Erase-Coplanar-Edges again gets rid of most internal faces and edges BUT it can't remove inner faces that are subdivided and not coplanar or have a single-faced edge... I thought about getting the all_connected face/edge and vertices and using the shape's topology - Euler Factor - v-e+f=2 etc to see if that helped - but so far not much use. If you remove the coplanar-edges first it does return 2 for simple solids + 1 for every internal cell making face...

componentizegroupsinstances.rb This script will do what you want - put it into the Plugins Folder. You need to type [or copy/paste] componentizegroupsinstances into the Ruby Console... However, it can easily have a menu item added if it's needed more frequently...

Now just 'mesh' it Very good... See also 'K_tools.rb' for similar ideas...

yES, i DEFINITELY SEE THE POTENTIAL SELECTION PROBLEMS IN THIS VIDEO. aND bOOL TOOLS IS A GREAT TOOL FOR THIS, INDEED. (oops - sorry for the caps lock but I am lazy to retype )

Yup. I used the name VisPro with a detailed description so the user would know its origin. I guess you could delete the Proxy Scene at the tail end of the script. Not sure creating and deleting would slow things down tho.

hmmmmm....im doing some tests with TOS on the mesh

Hi Didier I would like to use your 'component spray tool' to add life to my models. For that 'point spray' would be greate. But the problem is, when I 'spray' inside a bulding, the people I add are placed outside the group and on top of the roof, not inside the building as I would like. I'm I doing something wrong or is it not possible ? Thanks