Group from Selected Entities

dvonhausen

This is probably covered in the past but how, using ruby, do I group all of the selected components? In other words, programmatically perform a "Make Group"?

kyyu

It's done like this:

model = Sketchup.active_model
ent = model.entities
sel = model.selection
ent.add_group(sel)

You don't want to write it out like this (long way). But this is what the above means(all one line):

Sketchup.active_model.entities.add_group(Sketchup.active_model.selection)

thomthom

Wasn't there potential issues with adding existing entities to groups via the API?

TIG

@thomthom said:

Wasn't there potential issues with adding existing entities to groups via the API?

There was BUT in recent updates it seems much safer, although if the selection contains groups or instances it's safest to add new instances into the group.entities and erase! the originals to avoid splats...

thomthom

@tig said:

@thomthom said:

Wasn't there potential issues with adding existing entities to groups via the API?

There was BUT in recent updates it seems much safer, although if the selection contains groups or instances it's safest to add new instances into the group.entities and erase! the originals to avoid splats...

But what where the issues in older versions? And workarounds?
I actually have a project where I need to add some existing faces to groups and then manipulate these faces. Faces are connected to other geometry.

TIG

@thomthom said:

@tig said:

@thomthom said:

Wasn't there potential issues with adding existing entities to groups via the API?

There was BUT in recent updates it seems much safer, although if the selection contains groups or instances it's safest to add new instances into the group.entities and erase! the originals to avoid splats...

But what where the issues in older versions? And workarounds?
I actually have a project where I need to add some existing faces to groups and then manipulate these faces. Faces are connected to other geometry.

You would sometimes get unexpected BugSplats when grouping an array of entities directly - and you can still do if the array contains instances - it's safest to trap for these and use add_instance() on them in the new entities context, using the original instance's transformation, and then erase the original instance to tidy up! Raw geometry will move from an entities context into a group.entities relatively safely IF the group is in the ents_array[0].parent.entities too...
Of course 'cross-threading' entities across different contexts always messes up [still]
However if you only have faces you can usually safely use face_group=entities.add_group(array_of_faces_in_entities) and they'll be cut from entities and go into face_group - the faces disappear from entities, IF there are some face.edges that are no longer needed in entities [because there are no 'dependent' faces left in entities] then these are removed from entities too... BUT if there's an edge in entities that is needed for a face that's moved over into face_group.entities AND is still needed for a face that's left behind in entities, then that edge is 'auto-duplicated' in both entities contexts rather than 'moved' from one entities context to another like the face itself...

thomthom

cheers