Well, I'm glad it was. Thank you again.

There is an API UI [User Interface] method that opens a URL - i.e. a 'path' to a web site or a file - be it on the www/internet or just somewhere your PC or local network. The http tells it it's a www link whilst the drive-path etc and suffix of the file name tells your PC where to find the file and which application should open it. So, UI.openURL("http://forums.sketchucation.com/") opens this forum's home page in Internet-Explorer or Firefox or whatever your default web-browser might be... For a file it's in the form UI.openURL("C:\\Users\\TIG\\Desktop\\myskp.skp") which would open the given skp file - for this your PC will know to use SketchUp. For a text file UI.openURL("C:\\Users\\TIG\\Desktop\\mytextfile.txt") it'd use NotePad.exe etc etc... However all these do is open another application outside of SketchUp. Even if you wrote a custom web-browser in say VB it would be external. To have it 'internal' to SketchUp you need something like a web-dialog BUT has has been said this is not easy to achieve with js etc alone... So, whilst it's quite possible to get a browser to open a 'link' that is given entirely with in SketchUp [or for that matter any other file-type opening with it's appropriate application] it will become a process that's separate from SketchUp itself - so you might as well open a separate browser session manually - unless you need SketchUp to link to something specific - e.g. by clicking on a object in the model that opens some external data source...

Pilou - nascent scripter - yours I think... Iterate through model.definitions, if defn.group? then add if to a groups array and then iterate through groups and rename each group to match its group.layer.name, keep a list of all group names as you go [start by making a list of the groups' names and then remove old name and add new name as you go groups]. It a group name exists then increment it [tip: name="name#1";name=name.next if groupnames.include?(name)] - several groups could be on one layer and should them get named name#1,name#2,name#3 etc...

Hi all, Here is the new toy. Enjoy 04.11.08 Hi there, Here is a release of the spray tool, including a layer mask option, and some bug fixes (very high models with sky domes, active_layer automatically put in the dialog box, etc). French version coming soon. Enjoy,

@tanjoodo said: geat plugin thx This is an very old version. The new version is here: http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=11212&p=76625#p76625

@edson said: very strange, martin. i sent you the skippie on november 26th. could you check the image below to make sure i addressed it correctly? anyway, i am uploading the file to 4shared and will send you the link shortly. Rinehart

Moved the thread to the Developer's forum. We have reorganized so that the Plugin section is only a list of plugins you can download and use.

Thank you so much for creating this plugin for me! I was having no luck creating this plugin myself or finding a similar one on the web. You really have saved me a great deal of time, assuming this plugin works as intended I can't thank you enough! Nvm I found the problem. Thanks again

Ah, thank you Chris & Rick, after reading your replies I did open up some rubies and tried to figure out what you said, and will give it a go, although I'm more likely to break things than mend them But then, i always liked to take things apart to see what made them tick. Lesse ta.

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: 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