[Plugin] 2D Tools

TIG · 21 Sept 2009, 12:46

v2.4 is here http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=185760#p185760
It fixes many of the reported glitches including:
LineStyle failure with no scenes/pages fixed.
Z-plane inferencing improved.
Rectangle drawing clipping fixed up to 1km.
Help in MHT for PC is now also in PDF for Mac users, and also as DOC too.

TIG · 21 Sept 2009, 12:52

@unknownuser said:

TIG
Attached is the VCB during drawing an arc. Not sure, what VCB is displaying, however your help guide indicated that the VCB should be displaying the “swept-angle”
Thanks for the plugin
Ken

Ken
Clearly the 2d arc is 'working' and it's about 306 degrees (306993/1000) ! The reported angle in the VCB is calculated in radians, turned to degrees, made into a float, then into text... there's never a /1000 in it ! I can't see where the fractional info is coming from - do you have 'fractional' units set ? I don't get the nnn/nnn even with that set on my PC ? Can you give more details of your OS and model setup etc...

Dave R · 21 Sept 2009, 13:03

Thank you TIG. That appears to have fixed the line style problem.

Is there a way to edit the spacing of dashes or dots on the line style?

FWIW, I tried the swept arc and got a decimal display of the angle and I do have units set to fractional.

EarthMover · 21 Sept 2009, 13:44

Thanks for your diligence TIG. I'm always amazed at your dedication...especially with no financial compensation. You are one of the many SU heroes!

BTW - Everything is working fine now for me!

TIG · 21 Sept 2009, 17:51

@dave r said:

Thank you TIG. That appears to have fixed the line style problem.
Is there a way to edit the spacing of dashes or dots on the line style?
FWIW, I tried the swept arc and got a decimal display of the angle and I do have units set to fractional.

The angle should display as decimal degrees to ~3dp e.g. 90.0 or 91.125
The 'dashes and dots' space ~equal=line_width, but squash up to suit odd line lengths. You can write your own styles ! Just edit the code as needed !!!

Seriously, if there's another style you'd like that's not there, then give me an example and I might be able to add it ?

Dave R · 21 Sept 2009, 18:05

I wasn't complaining about the angle display. Just mentioning that it seemed to be alright for me. I didn't get the strange fractional display that Ken got.

Thanks on the line styles. I don't have anything in mind at the moment. I was just curious. In some case the dashes or dots seemed too close together but that could be just me.

ken · 21 Sept 2009, 22:15

TIG
Here is my operating system and Sketchup info.

XP Profession Ver 2002, Service Pack 2, Sketchup Pro 7.0.10247.

The VCB apparently reads the cursor position, I can move the cursor without changing the angle and get a changing reading on the VCB.

I have discovered that if I start the arc at the origin, the VCB will read 0 degree at the top, 90 to the right, 180 down and 90 towards the left at each axis. It appears to be able to snap to the axis.

I used the protractor and made guidelines at 60, 45 and 30 degrees. If I stopped at any of the guidelines, the VCB read the correct degrees, but would not read the correct degrees between the guidelines. i.e Going CW, 60, 45, 30, 150, 135 and 120.

Wish I could give you more help.

Again, I want to thank you for this plugin. I find I can turn out small 2d drawing quicker with Sketchup than if I use any other CAD program. Not asking you to change anything, however, I would prefer when doing a 2d drawing to just have all the icons for all the different selections displayed. To me that would be faster than trying to remember what control to pick. I know that would take up a lot of space, but I would only load this menu when I have to do a 2d drawing.

Also, V2.5 still says ver V2.4. Did you not change the Ver number or did you download V2.4 again?

Ken

TIG · 21 Sept 2009, 22:51

Ken

The very first post in this thread contains a zip with the latest [currently v2.5] files in it. Some files might have not changed and say v2.4 in them - but for completeness they're all in the one zip...

I hope that the options aren't too cumbersome... Make a note and stick it on top of your monitor...
They do mostly appear in the VCB bar too.....

Line:
Ctrl toggles Lines/ConstructionLines
Alt toggles Lines/Polylines
Type lengths in VCB

Rectangle:
Type Dimensions pt1+width or height

Freehand:
Type segment length in VCB

Arc:
Ctrl toggles 3-point/center+2-point
Alt toggles angles 0-180/180-360
Type NNs'egments at any time or length/radius between pt1/pt2 or swept-angle between pt2/pt3

Circle:
Ctrl toggle center+radius/3-point
Alt toggle center+radius/2-point(diameter)
Type NNs'egments at any time or pt1+radius/diameter etc

Fillet:
Alt toggles Fillet/Chamfer
Type NNs'egments for radius or radius, or chamfer/chamfer1:chamfer2

The other tools either have limited options or have dialogs [2DText] or you right-click in empty-space to open their dialog - e.g. Hatching and Line-Style
Selecting some 2DText or a Styled-Line gives special context-menus and then the editing dialog...

xrok1 · 22 Sept 2009, 01:26

Matt666 · 22 Sept 2009, 07:50

Hi TIG!
Great new tools, thank you!
Just one thing I've changed in your plugin... I don't like to put plugins in the plugins folder... So I made my script withs relative pathes.
If you want I can tell you where you pathes are absolute...

TIG · 22 Sept 2009, 10:19

Here's v2.5 http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=185760#p185760

Clipping fixed with Tool.getExtents thanks to NewOne's idea. +

agrazdi · 22 Sept 2009, 12:48

Tig

Any plans for a double line ?

agrazdi

EarthMover · 22 Sept 2009, 13:19

The more I use this toolset, the more I love it. I had to do a quick cross section of a roof detail yesterday to apply for permits on an upcoming build. Instead of CAD, I was able to do it all in Sketchup using 2D tools. Putting the line style changes on their own layer to be toggled on and off, is brilliant. You can do preliminary plan view drawings with line styles, then shut them off and proceed with the 3D modeling. Another great thing about Line Styles......they are renderable!!

It would be nice to incorporate Matt's extend tool into the toolset. Also making an extend tool for an arc would be brilliant. So often I have to try and continue and existing arc to a line and it usually requires finding the center point, using TOS to draw a Cline Circle, then snapping the arcs bulge to it, as tangent snaps isn't always reliable. Another way is to explode the curve, find center point and rotate a section around, but if it could be streamlined into a Arc extend tool, that would great.

One other request would be the ability to have leader text that doesn't change size when your scroll in and out. Perhaps there is a setting to change this that I don't know about??? Perhaps an improved leader text tool for 2D tools would be in order.

Pixero · 22 Sept 2009, 14:21

I cant see any snapping points when using the line tool. Bug?

markozeta · 22 Sept 2009, 15:37

@earthmover said:

One other request would be the ability to have leader text that doesn't change size when your scroll in and out. Perhaps there is a setting to change this that I don't know about??? Perhaps an improved leader text tool for 2D tools would be in order.

Set your text size to be a value in inches, rather than point size.

Window > Model Info > Text > Font Size.

Set it for a value in inches and it will be constant. In points it will move zoom with the zoom.

Ben Ritter · 22 Sept 2009, 15:41

TIG,

Just started to use the tools and all I can say is that they are wonderful. Thank you so much.

One problem I'm having is getting the hatching command to work. Does not want to initialize, no dialog box, etc.

Ben

TIG · 22 Sept 2009, 16:57

@ben ritter said:

TIG,

Just started to use the tools and all I can say is that they are wonderful. Thank you so much.

One problem I'm having is getting the hatching command to work. Does not want to initialize, no dialog box, etc.

Ben

After hatching has been run once you should get it opening without a dialog, with the last set 'patt' reported on the VCB, right-click in empty-space to get the dialog up to change the 'patt'. Otherwise please run with ruby console open and report error messages...

TIG · 22 Sept 2009, 16:58

@pixero said:

I cant see any snapping points when using the line tool. Bug?

There aren't any ! Might add some ???

TIG · 22 Sept 2009, 17:06

2D text has no 'leaders' - it's easy enough to add one as a 2D polyline between the text and the required point. If you want an arrow or 'dot' then add say a text 'point' at the end ?

Ben Ritter · 22 Sept 2009, 20:04

@tig said:

@ben ritter said:

TIG,

Just started to use the tools and all I can say is that they are wonderful. Thank you so much.

One problem I'm having is getting the hatching command to work. Does not want to initialize, no dialog box, etc.

Ben

After hatching has been run once you should get it opening without a dialog, with the last set 'patt' reported on the VCB, right-click in empty-space to get the dialog up to change the 'patt'. Otherwise please run with ruby console open and report error messages...

TIG,

I click on the tool and nothing happens. The ruby console says, "Cancelled 2d Hatching". That's all it says.