Deleting all hidden geometry

ericschimel · 1 Nov 2009, 22:15

Being a bit of a rookie at Ruby, does anyone out there know if its possible to write a script that would select, and delete all hidden geometry from a model?

thomthom · 1 Nov 2009, 22:21

Untested, but I think this should work. (SU7)


Sketchup.active_model.start_operation('Erase all Hidden geometry', true)
ents = []
Sketchup.active_model.entities.each { |e|
  ents << if e.hidden? || e.layer.hidden?
}
Sketchup.active_model.entities.erase_entities(ents)
Sketchup.active_model.definitions.each { |d|
  next if d.image?
  ents = []
  d.entities.each { |e|
    ents << if e.hidden? || e.layer.hidden?
  }
  d.entities.erase_entities(ents)
}
Sketchup.active_model.commit_operation

Not sure if you also count Soft edges as hidden?

TIG · 1 Nov 2009, 22:23

It'd be quite easy to do... BUT... if something is 'connected' to other stuff you'd get unexpected problems.

For example, if a hidden Edge is forming a visible Face then erasing the Edge erases the Face too ! Which you'd probably NOT want ??

Exactly what 'Hidden Geometry' are we talking about here ? Hidden Groups/Instances, or other hidden 'raw geometry' like Edges/Faces?

If it's 'all' of these then you'll need to trap for connectivity across the hidden/visible divide - like my Faced-Edge example...

If it's stuff on a 'hidden' layer then cross connectivity still applies - there's 'hidden-entities' and entities on 'hidden-layers' - two separate things with similar outcomes...

Please give us a bit more detail - then it'd be relatively easy to do... but the why is the most important part... So we could tailor the outcome to what you want...

Chris Fullmer · 1 Nov 2009, 23:06

I suppose it could check each edge before deleting to test if it is connected to a visible face. It is is, then instead of deleting the edge, it should probably just unhide it. That might work for edges.

Chris

ericschimel · 1 Nov 2009, 23:50

Wow! I was just looking to see if that was even possible, I didn't mean for you guys to go and do half the work for me! I really appreciate it though!!

Here is what I am trying to accomplish:

I have some custom DC's that I use to make models with... I want to be able to send these models out, but I don't want the people I am sending them to to have the DC's.........

I am basically trying to see if its possible to write a script that will delete all hidden geometry in the model (As there a lot of options in my DC's that hide, and unhide things) AND I would like the script to explode the entire model down to raw geometry (this part I already know is possible)

I would obviously do a SAVE AS right before I did this, so I could edit my original model... Perhaps Ruby could save the file for me.... (FILENAME_EXPLODED.SKP)

thomthom · 2 Nov 2009, 07:46

model.save
http://code.google.com/intl/nb/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/model.html#save

So it's be

Save Model As
Erase all hidden Components (All Components in DC's only?)
Kaboooom!
Save

?

ericschimel · 2 Nov 2009, 10:07

You've pretty much got it!

My hope is, after all the hidden geometry is deleted, that the DC's don't get whacky before they are exploded...

thomthom · 2 Nov 2009, 10:09

hmm... Maybe removing the DC attributes before erasing..?

thomthom · 2 Nov 2009, 10:10

But only remove components located inside DCs?

ericschimel · 2 Nov 2009, 10:16

Removing the hidden ones just inside the DC's would be nice if the script could be that smart... Not necessary though... It could just delete all hidden geometry in the model...

Do you think there is a way to make a plugin that would strip DC's of all their "smartness"?

thomthom · 2 Nov 2009, 10:27

It's possible to remove the attribute_dictionaries, yes. It's from them you can detect if a component is a DC.
But I'm not sure about any observers attached to the DC. Maybe there's some hidden API to control that..?

ericschimel · 2 Nov 2009, 13:28

That would be nice if you could do that....

However, simply exploding everything in the model should cause the DC's to lose all their attributes anyway...

As long as I can get rid of the hidden geometry, which shows itself when exploded, I would be good...

Jim · 2 Nov 2009, 13:57

@thomthom said:

But I'm not sure about any observers attached to the DC. Maybe there's some hidden API to control that..?

@unknownuser said:

However, simply exploding everything in the model should cause the DC's to lose all their attributes anyway...

I'm not 100% certain of how they work internally, but it would seem if simply exploding a DC and vaporizing the attribute dictionary caused a failure of SketchUp, it would be a major issue and would have come up already.

ericschimel · 2 Nov 2009, 15:07

I just realized that I would have to "Purge Unused" from the model as well to get rid of all the components...

I would assume that is easy to access via ruby as well....

thomthom · 2 Nov 2009, 15:14

@unknownuser said:

I just realized that I would have to "Purge Unused" from the model as well to get rid of all the components...

I would assume that is easy to access via ruby as well....

Yes.

I won't have time to look at this for a few days - if any of the other scripters got a few spare minutes..?

ericschimel · 2 Nov 2009, 15:26

Don't let me stop you if you want to... I was just trying to get a sense of the possibility of all of this. Im going to start researching the Ruby code site and see what I can come up with...

thomthom · 2 Nov 2009, 15:51

Well, it's a nice little starter project if you're new to ruby and sketchup plugin scripting.

jczt · 18 Mar 2021, 20:16

Hello to all,

12 years later... Sorry.

I am working on model with a lot of DCs, and the .csv export of "attrreporter.rb" takes several time.

The TomTom's solution "model.save" maybe can hepl me.

Does Someone keep it safe?

Thank you for your answers.

Julien