[Plugin] Front Face - 1.2

tomasz

I am testing your method TIG and it is working fine for Pilou's ball, but it is not dealing well with urban model I have.
I have two ideas how to modify your method to suit FrontFace plugin better.

1st - limit connected faces only to those with soften edge.
2nd - limit to faces at lower angle then 90 deg.

Will try and see.

Pilou if you want to see how it works modify this method in frontface.rb as follows:

def reverseFace(face)
	face.reverse!
	face.material, face.back_material = face.back_material, face.material
	face.orient_faces
end

Tomasz

boofredlay

Thanks for this. It will prove to be very useful.

pilou

@ Tomasz
I have also try the original SU Internal "Orient face" and it works fine also with my ball with only one click
Your works also after the modification but you must over flight all the facets

Ben Ritter

Tomasz, thank you very much.

Ben

alz

Very useful!

Could you add a "hold down left mouse" to have it be active? This would prevent accidental flipping when simply moving your mouse around in the scene.

Another possibility -- when being used, toggle to a different Style (say Gray = front face, Red = back face).

boofredlay

@alz said:

Could you add a "hold down left mouse" to have it be active? This would prevent accidental flipping when simply moving your mouse around in the scene.

That or change the cursor to something different while active.

tomasz

@unknownuser said:

That or change the cursor to something different while active.

Good idea Boofredlay - added to the 'TO DO' list.

@alz said:

Could you add a "hold down left mouse" to have it be active? This would prevent accidental flipping when simply moving your mouse around in the scene.

I think your finger will fail with big scenes to work correctly for a longer period ,
but... I could turn it on permanently when a LMB would be pressed longer then.. say 5 sec.

@alz said:

Another possibility -- when being used, toggle to a different Style (say Gray = front face, Red = back face).

I prefer let user decide what monochrome style looks like.

Thanks
Tomasz

TIG

@unknownuser said:

Sorry but how call the Tig Orient.face.rb?
In what Menu, or with what Click mouse?
I suppose with the Ruby console?
How must be the selection? Facets selected? Group Selected?...

I obtain that with the ruby Console with "face.orient_faces" or "orient.face" input in the console

Error; #<NameError; (eval);495; undefined local variable or method `face' for main;Object>
> (eval);495

So I am perplex

As the guidance notes at the start say...

It matches the orientation of a face to any connected 'co-edged' faces.
It mimics SketchUp's "Orient Faces" Tool.
It can sometimes produce slightly different results when more than two
connected faces share a common edge. Its results are equally logical,
and who's to say how they should orient anyway ?
Ideas on how to duplicate the built-in tool are welcomed...
You can call it from other scripts thus: face.orient_faces

i.e. if you put the script in the Plugins Folder it creates a new method - a 'Face' now has an extra method called "orient_faces"

Let's say you have a face that's been chosen in your script which has been given the variable 'face', then adding in the line

face.orient_faces

will make any other faces that adjoin it [or its neighbours etc] flip to match that chosen face's orientation (normal) - just like the built-in 'orient faces' does in the right-click context-menu when you select a face...

.

Daniel Bouchard

Thanks Tomasz for this great plugin.

boofredlay

Any progress on changing the cursor Tomasz?
I am using it today and was just curious. Handy tool BTW.

Gaieus

Hi Tomasz,

Thanks for this gem!

One question (or maybe a feature request) - after reversing the face (and successfully applying the back face material on the front face), could the plugin also delete the material applied on the back face? I.e. to paint the back face with the default (grey/blue) material.

OR - alternatively - does anyone know a plugin that would delete all materials applied to back faces only?

thomthom

@gaieus said:

OR - alternatively - does anyone know a plugin that would delete all materials applied to back faces only?

I could add that to my Remove Marerials plugin.

Rich O Brien

Thom,

That'd be an excellent feature and much appreciated

Rich

Gaieus

Yes, Thom, that would be very handy.

But of course, such a (to me very sophisticated but for you, guys, probably easy) modification for this FrontFace Plugin would also be handy - so that you need not fiddle with two different plugins (although the very simplicity of this plugin is also charming - no settings, no hassle with dialogs - just "brush" over the model and voilá)

tomasz

Hi Gaieus,
The option of having back material reset to default looks nice.
I am currently terribly busy, but Christmas is coming.
I will put it on my list.

Tomasz

thomthom

I'd added the feature to Remove Materials. Will post it later.

tomasz

@unknownuser said:

Any progress on changing the cursor Tomasz?
I am using it today and was just curious. Handy tool BTW.

Checked the API. It looks easy...

Gaieus

Guys, I am amazed at the helpfulness of all of you.

Once I win this combpetition, I hope you will all come and enjoy the party.

(BTW I am planning a difficult plugin - you will hate me...)

TIG

In the meanwhile, before it gets written into something better - to make ALL rear faces in the model [and faces inside definitions too] have the default material on their backs, just copy and paste this line of code into the Ruby Console - I compressed it into one line for ease of pasting...

m=Sketchup.active_model;es=m.entities;es.each{|e|e.back_material=nil if e.class==Sketchup;;Face};ds=m.definitions;ds.each{|d|d.entities.each{|e|e.back_material=nil if e.class==Sketchup;;Face}};return nil

tomasz

Ok. I said I was busy, but I had to refresh my memory, how to write a Tool in SU, so played with FrontFace and here we go:
Version 1.2 is ready.

Greetings
Tomasz