[REQ] Scale to Offset

Crazy Eyes

Seeing as as know nothing about ruby and you guys know heaps, I was wondering if there was already a script that could help me or if someone wanted to try their hand at making a particular script.

The idea is that, for instance, you have a window that is all square. You want to have the outside of the frame sloping to the inside. You cant just scale it because the normal scale tool will make the window openings smaller. So you use the Scale to Offset tool.

You select the face you want scaled and press the Scale to Offset button. You then select your required offset or enter the value as any normal offset tool. The script then uses the offset face to rebuild the connected faces down to the next face and removes the old geometery.

If this doesn't make much sense, I've included a simple SU6 file to show what I mean.

Crazy Eyes

Scale to Offset.skp

Dave R

What you want makes sense to me and a plugin might be nice although that doesn't do you any good because I don't know diddly about writing plugins. FWIW, I did what you want the plugin to do in four steps without redrawing anything.

Crazy Eyes

Really? how did you manage it in four steps? Can you tell me your process?

Dave R

I'll make a quick SKP file to show you. I'll post it shortly.

Dave R

Alright, quick and dirty. Look at the attached SKP and follow along.
Scale to Offset Alternative.skp

First, note that I shifted the view to the top view for all of the scenes. If the window component were positioned on a wall, you would shift to the appropriate view. Also notice that I changed the camera to Parallel Projection to make it easier to select what I wanted to selet. You could actually do this in many cases without leaving the Perspective mode.

Scene 1: Drag left to right selection boxes as indicated by the blue rectangles. Left to right is very important. It selects all entities that fall fully within the bounding box. Get the Move tool and move the selection 50mm. (That's what your offest showed.) To make the second selection box, hold Shift or Ctrl while dragging it.

Scene 2: Make left to right selection boxes as shown. Move the selection the desired distance.

Scene 3: Do it again.

Scene 4: Do it again.

Scene 5: Done with a copy of the original as a comparison.

While a plugin for this might be useful, the method I show could be used for a lot more than this example. You could use this to resize the window completely or to change the length of a molding with its end coped. You could change a coffee table into a dinner table or make a single bed in to a California King.

Clear as mud?

Crazy Eyes

oh, ok.
Thanks

Your description of your method is such that I didn't need to download your skp file. But the tool that I am suggesting will be not only for the square faces that I have shown, but also for use with curved lines on the faces.

I really appreciate your feedback though.

Maybe I will have to see if I can purchase a copy of "Ruby script for SketchUp for dummies".

Thanks

Crazy Eyes