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    [Plugin] Import STL files

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    • Didier BurD Offline
      Didier Bur
      last edited by

      Hi,

      @unknownuser said:

      I am using Sketchup 7.0. Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

      Not at all. It can be aproblem with SU7, or a problem with the STL file. Post it here so I can check it.
      Regards,

      DB

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      • C Offline
        casey344
        last edited by

        Thanks for offering to help.

        You should be able to pick it up here ...

        Link to file:
        https://download.yousendit.com/bVlCSXR3Mm1wTVYzZUE9PQ

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        • Didier BurD Offline
          Didier Bur
          last edited by

          AAARGGHHHH 71 Mb !
          Downloading it now, but I guess the file is too big for SU...

          DB

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          • C Offline
            casey344
            last edited by

            Sorry, not my doing. 😕

            Manufacturer sent it that way.

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            • J Offline
              jwelin
              last edited by

              Thanks for the work on this plugin. I have a three questions:

              Is there a limit to the level of nested groups/components it exports?

              The exported STL seems to be incompatible with some applications. Rhino sees the geometry, for instance, while Magics does not. Also an SU2stl generated stl, opened in Rhino and resaved as an STL is much smaller in file size. Would you like to see examples?

              Is there a way to call this plugin from another? I have a need to batch export.

              John Welin
              architectural model maker
              Chicago, USA

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              • Didier BurD Offline
                Didier Bur
                last edited by

                Hi,

                @unknownuser said:

                The exported STL seems to be incompatible with some applications

                There are several STL formats which slightly differ in their syntax. The one I have choosen to export is the most standard one, as defined here for instance:
                http://www.gom.com/CONTAINER/files/sp_stl_en.pdf
                or here:
                http://mech.fsv.cvut.cz/~dr/papers/Lisbon04/node2.html
                Maybe some applications do not support every kind of STL ?

                @unknownuser said:

                an SU2stl generated stl, opened in Rhino and resaved as an STL is much smaller in file size

                I don't have Rhino, but I suppose that it saves an STL in the binary format, while my script saves it in ASCII (text), which is 8 times bigger (average). You can see the same differences between an ascii dxf and a binary dxf (dxb) for instance.

                @unknownuser said:

                Is there a limit to the level of nested groups

                No. Not tested here but as a recursive method is involved, there should be no limits.
                Components are NOT supported, groups are.

                @unknownuser said:

                Is there a way to call this plugin from another?

                Unfortunately no.

                Regards,

                DB

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                • thomthomT Offline
                  thomthom
                  last edited by

                  @didier bur said:

                  @unknownuser said:

                  Is there a limit to the level of nested groups

                  No. Not tested here but as a recursive method is involved, there should be no limits.
                  Components are NOT supported, groups are.

                  I found that recursive methods might cause SU to bugsplat. http://www.sketchucation.com/forums/scf/viewtopic.php?f=180&t=15585&p=120726 I had a method that looped over entities to find connected entities which used a recursive method. Had to change it to an iterative method.

                  Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                  List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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                  • Didier BurD Offline
                    Didier Bur
                    last edited by

                    @unknownuser said:

                    I found that recursive methods might cause SU to bugsplat.

                    Bad news 😞

                    DB

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                    • thomthomT Offline
                      thomthom
                      last edited by

                      Mind you, it happens when you do many recursions. When crawling geometry you quickly end up with hundreds iterations. So if the script never goes that deep you're ok. But it's something to be aware of.

                      Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                      List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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                      • N Offline
                        NewOne
                        last edited by

                        When exporting STL from SolidWorks, here is an option to put all geometry in same file or to create separate file for each part. Mr. Didier Bur, could this script to be modified in a manner that allows multiple file selection and each geometry to be made group (or component if there are more identical parts) ? Or to specify a folder where stl part files are located?

                        Thank you.

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                        • Didier BurD Offline
                          Didier Bur
                          last edited by

                          Dropped into the to-do list 😉

                          DB

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                          • GaieusG Offline
                            Gaieus
                            last edited by

                            bump
                            (sorry Dider - no practical reason just testing some moderation stuff)

                            Gai...

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                            • S Offline
                              stefkeB
                              last edited by

                              Minor improvement:

                              On line 54 you call the "openpanel" method when exporting. This should be "savepanel", so the user gets the correct dialog displayed. Still works on Windows but not on OSX, where you need to point to an already existing file.

                              Also, the default "." file location could be replaced with ENV['USER'] or ENV['HOME'] or preferably the current file folder, as to make it more convenient. With 'USER' it works much better for me on OSX.

                              (I refer to the unscrambled file, obviously, not the compacted one -- maybe the reason why people think it is a binary file)

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                              • Didier BurD Offline
                                Didier Bur
                                last edited by

                                Hi,
                                @stefkeB: I'm using openpanel when importing, and savepanel when exporting. So I don't understand what you're talking about, propably you have an old version, because the latest one is v1.3. (Nov 2009) and is scrambled in a RBS file (so unreadable).

                                DB

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                                • thomthomT Offline
                                  thomthom
                                  last edited by

                                  I've been looking around at the various ruby based importers for SketchUp and I see that no one uses the Importer class. If this class is used the importer can be found in the native import list which would be very nice.
                                  http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/importer.html

                                  Thomas Thomassen — SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                                  List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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                                  • charly2008C Offline
                                    charly2008
                                    last edited by

                                    Hi Didier,

                                    I have tried the tool in Sketchup 8. The Unit support appears and I can choose my unit but then nothing happens. I've attached the stl files which I downloaded from Internet.

                                    Charly


                                    knot.zip


                                    brain-gear.zip

                                    He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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                                    • Didier BurD Offline
                                      Didier Bur
                                      last edited by

                                      Hi Charly,
                                      Your files are binary STL files. The script cannot read such files, but only ASCII STL format.
                                      You can convert binary STL's to ASCII with Meshlab (free) for instance.
                                      Regards,

                                      DB

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                                      • charly2008C Offline
                                        charly2008
                                        last edited by

                                        Hi Didier,

                                        Thank you for the explanation. I learned something more to it.

                                        Charly

                                        He who makes no mistakes, makes nothing

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                                        • D Offline
                                          davidheim1
                                          last edited by

                                          Didier,
                                          I just downloaded the STL Export/Import plug-in on my Mac, but I can't make it work. It asks me for the name of a file to export, but won't ever let me export anything. What am I missing? Can you provide a brief explanation of how to make the export function work?
                                          Many thanks,
                                          David Heim

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                                          • mariochaM Offline
                                            mariocha
                                            last edited by

                                            @davidheim1 said:

                                            Didier,
                                            It asks me for the name of a file to export to, but won't ever let me export anything.
                                            David Heim

                                            Same here. It happens with the one loaded from SketchUcation store.
                                            But the one on CRAI Ruby depot, loaded the old way, manually, works.

                                            %(#008000)[Mario C.
                                            Every rule has exceptions, but some.]

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