Valiarchitects - plugins

tspco

Chuck, nicely done, on the instant roof RB, I downloaded it and installed it in SU7, drew a quick model, then rendered it KT, and the roof doesn't leak (light that is). That is one problem I have had in the past, I usually can get it fixed but it cuts into my "play time".
Thanks again for a great plug!

chuck vali

@solo said:

Chuck,

How do I solve the gap between road and ground, I fear it may be because of SU size limitation, but when I opt out of curb and even set hieght to 0, I get gaps.

It's not a SU size limitation. The road thickness must be >= 1" or <= -1", otherwise a gap will occur. If you need the road surface flush with surrounding terrain, you can generate the road at some arbitrary thickness, select the top road surface and move it down. (It has the exact same perimeter as the hole in the terrain, so it will fit).

Chuck

solo

Thanks Chuck.

I had to select it and use move tool to get it flush. Entering 0" does not get accepted I noticed, it automatically defaults to 1/2", no problem as there is a work around.

vidy

@dtrarch said:

New question:
Does it work with SU 7.1 free
or just 8.0 Pro?

kind of having the same problem here, im using su 7.1
please could it be checked Chuck or this plugins only for su 8?

thank you,
VD

Krisidious

I'm using it on 7.1 no issues yet. none that were not just me not configuring or setting up the plugin properly.

vidy

hi krist,
probably could provide a step by step just in writing for this plugin to work or how it work, actually for the roof i have no problem, but when i try to follow solo's image to create a road, it just nothing happen..

thanks,

Krisidious

there are a bunch of tutorials on Chuck's site... have you seen them yet?

(www.valiarchitects.com)

Krisidious

it's under each plugin where it says "learn more". at the bottom of each of those pages.

vidy

woohoo.. never check tutorial on the sites before.. thanks krist, will look for it.

Bob James

@chuck vali said:

Reply to Grim,

The terrain has to be larger than the road plus the shoulder width. So I scaled up the terrain slightly to get it to work. But it made kind of a bumpy road. That's because the road precision was much tighter than the terrain spacing - which makes the road follow the coarse terrain. So in the next copy, I reduced the precision of the road by changing the "adjust number of curve segments" parameter from "3x" to "same as input" and the road was less bumpy. Try turning on hidden lines to see what I mean.

As for "try before buy", all that pro does is let you make a few things wider - everything else is the same. So please see if you like it first. (And can figure out all my cryptic parameters)

Chuck

Thank you, Chuck. I had the same introductory problems as Grim: the attached revised skp reallymade it clear.
Great tool: purchase in-work.

jaxcoffee

I seem to be having problems access your site. Something I should be aware of?

chuck vali

@jaxcoffee said:

I seem to be having problems access your site. Something I should be aware of?

Hi jaxcoffee,
I am not experiencing any problems, so please try again http://www.valiarchitects.com
What browser are you using? We are still trying to figure out this website stuff --- the different web browsers, different languages, different operating systems... Any feedback is welcome, so we can get our interface working without glitches.
Thanks,
Chuck

jaxcoffee

@chuck vali said:

@jaxcoffee said:

I seem to be having problems access your site. Something I should be aware of?

Hi jaxcoffee,
I am not experiencing any problems, so please try again http://www.valiarchitects.com
What browser are you using? We are still trying to figure out this website stuff --- the different web browsers, different languages, different operating systems... Any feedback is welcome, so we can get our interface working without glitches.
Thanks,
Chuck

I use Chrome, and the error message I was getting was a server or host error. I just don't recall what it said. Sorry, but all is well now. Thanks Great plug-in's.

jaxcoffee

Seem to be getting nothing but bug splats when trying to use the instant roof plugin. I'm on version 8 pro. Am I missing something here?

Thanks

chuck vali

@jaxcoffee said:

Seem to be getting nothing but bug splats when trying to use the instant roof plugin. I'm on version 8 pro. Am I missing something here?

Thanks

I don't know it this is the issue in your case, but it's very important to close the 'Outliner' window prior to running Instant Roof. If not, the script will crash.

Another possible reason for a crash is when the geometry in the model is slightly off, say out-of-square by a small fraction of a degree. This can happen when geometry is imported from another cad program. Not likely if geometry is drawn in SketchUp.

View this tutorial on Instant Roof http://www.valiarchitects.com/tutorials/some-simple-roofs
More advance tutorials at: http://www.valiarchitects.com/sketchup_scripts/tutorials
Thanks for giving the plugin a try,
Chuck

rpaul

Hi Chuck

I thought it might be a good idea to ask you a question here as it may help others using this plugin. I'm using the pro version, and need some help. I'm trying to create an open beam trellis, with the rafters at 2' oc. The trellis as created does not correctly place the rafters directly opposite each other at the ridge where they should be, but instead offsets their placement somewhat haphazardly. I would think that the rafter spacing should be derived by establishing the centerlines of the structure, both x and y, and then calculating the rafter spacing from there.

Is there a way to adjust this, other than manually?

Ron

manamana

I'm having some trouble with instant road.

crunches for a few hours and then says it can't triangulate the mesh, reduce max road length. I've gone down to 5' and it still bonks out. Anyone have any ideas?

roadfail.skp

chuck vali

@manamana said:

I'm having some trouble with instant road.

crunches for a few hours and then says it can't triangulate the mesh, reduce max road length. I've gone down to 5' and it still bonks out. Anyone have any ideas?

[attachment=1:3iccghc2]roadfail.skp[/attachment:3iccghc2]

The script says to be patient. But more than a few minutes is too much patience.

Please accept my apologies. Looped roads are not allowed in InstantRoad. I thought I had this documented: but realize I only mentioned this in the "road from centerline" method docs.

So for this model, I cut the outline into 2 separate groups and generated the road sections separately. Each road section took around a minute on my machine. I then filled in the missing sections manually (in red).

BTW, the terrain had some extra lines in the area of the road that I erased before executing.

It isn't the issue here, but I'd like to stress that it's important to have a virgin group when using InstantRoad. This means: if you scale; make a copy of; or rotate the group, you need to explode and regroup prior to running the script. Otherwise strange things may happen.

Chuck
[attachment=0:3iccghc2]roadfail doesnt allow closed loops.skp[/attachment:3iccghc2]

roadfail doesnt allow closed loops.skp

darth666

@jaxcoffee said:

Seem to be getting nothing but bug splats when trying to use the instant roof plugin. I'm on version 8 pro. Am I missing something here?

Thanks

same here... if I choose to create new roof (not predefined) sketchup crashes. All defined roofs work until I choose options to edit slope...or hips...during roof creation, then sketchup crashes.

SK8PRO, Windows 7

chuck vali

@rpaul said:

Hi Chuck

Is there a way to adjust this, other than manually?

Ron[attachment=0:36sostdm]Trellis.jpg[/attachment:36sostdm]

When writing the script, I simplified a few things to make it easier for me to write it: one was to work on each eave section independently and place rafter tails from right on that section. This hugely simplified the script for dealing with multi-level buildings, but created some issues as you show with this trellis.

The result is that, in a simple symmetrical building, such as this trellis, the opposite sides are rotated copies, rather than mirrored.

Unfortunately, the only way to obtain mirrored rafters is to erase 2 of the sides and mirror the remaining 2 sides. In a similar way, if rafters tails aren't exactly lined up either side of a gable roof, the offending rafters must be selected and moved over.

I'm considering changing the script name to "Sort_Of_Instant_Roof"

Chuck