[REQ] Weld ALL selected lines

free agent · 5 Jun 2009, 07:39

something that kills me with organic modeling (topographic) is having to weld a thousand separate groups of lines into curves in order to use simplify contour on the welded curves, desperately need to be able to select all the lines and hsve all the lines become separate welded curves

is this possible, perhaps it exists?

edit oops as soon as i posted this i realisd that if i select all the lines and run simplify contours, it does what i requested, so this is more of a lesson than a request...

thomthom · 5 Jun 2009, 08:30

@unknownuser said:

run simplify contours

What is this?

Dave R · 5 Jun 2009, 10:59

There is a weld plugin that's been around since nearly the beginning of plugins for SketchUp. It's extremely handy.

kwistenbiebel · 5 Jun 2009, 11:13

@thomthom said:

@unknownuser said:

run simplify contours

What is this?

Yes, i would like to know as well.
I share the same need as FreeAgent, especially with terrains.

free agent · 5 Jun 2009, 11:16

Dave: thats what i was refering to when i said "weld", my problem was i needed to weld alot of "groups" of lines into individual welded curves, the ruby "weld" only does one set of connected lines at a time. (i think weld and curve-sticher were the first rubies i got when starting sketchup)

thomthom: simplify contours from the cadfather's "CD Archiland" toolbar set, (i dont know who the original author was) it simplifies curves by the angle between adjacent lines.

so if i select alot of lines made by an intersection of planes and contour/organic shape, i can run simplify contours and it converts all "sets" of lines that are touching into individual welded curves...

ps: in the dialogue box that pops up after hitting "simplify contours" enter 0 and it welds all lines without simplifying

thomthom · 5 Jun 2009, 11:51

Ah.

I've recently used 3DS max to make my terrains. Yesterday I took a terrain that would originally generate 1.000.000 polygons and managed to simplify it down to 50.000 via 3dsmax.

free agent · 5 Jun 2009, 12:47

polygon cruncher?

thomthom · 5 Jun 2009, 13:06

MultiRes modifier. Very easy to use. Just set the percentage of vertices it should use. Tweaking that number and observing the polycount makes it easy to find the sweetspot where you start loosing too much detail.

free agent · 5 Jun 2009, 13:22

thanx im current in a 3 way orgy with Sketchup and Max, each program filling in for the others weakness

thomthom · 5 Jun 2009, 13:34

I want to make use of 3DSMax as well since the office is using more and more Revit.
Just wondering if I should get into Mental Ray - seeing that it's built into Max and Revit and that materials and sun etc is pre setup. Or if I should get V-Ray for max for it's speed and since I'm already used to that.

Chris Fullmer · 5 Jun 2009, 16:04

I love mental ray...it has really grown up in recent Max versions. It makes some nice renders.

Chris

free agent · 5 Jun 2009, 17:29

i think they are very similar, vray and mental ray, i would really like to get into MR to discern the differences for myself.

i was really impressed with this: http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=5097&page=1

gata · 6 Jun 2009, 10:32

Simplify contours was one of the first sample scripts @Last released when the Ruby API was added to help seed script development.

RickW · 7 Jun 2009, 04:05

I could look into extending weld. I will add it to my list.

utiler · 15 Jun 2009, 03:10

Hi Rick and others.
I've found WELD to be a little clumsy of late. Maybe it just what I'm wanting it to do but in one instance i can get it to weld all selected then if I select other lines that may touch the previous one and ask to weld then everything gets exploded!!
An update would be much apprcaited, Rick...

BTW, Simplify contours script from long ago is attached...

SimplifyContours.rb