Export image by layer

walzo

Hi there,

I'm looking to write a script that will run an export image (or Podium render) command with one layer visible at a time. Any hints? I imagine it needs to be some kind of 'for each layer' loop:

-Make current layer visible
-Hide others
-Render image
-Move on to the next layer

I know the export image commands pretty well, but the rest I'm still working out.
I understand basic coding ideas, though I'm not too well versed in Ruby.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jim

Hi walzo, welcome to the forum.

You can call Podium from your plugin starting with Podium V2. You can also export an image, or create a Scene for each Layer. However you want to do it, the core code will be similar.


# Set all Layers not visible
for layer in Sketchup.active_model.layers
  layer.visible = false
end

# Iterate Layers, show next Layer, then
# either create a Scene, or export and image.

for layer in Sketchup.active_model.layers
  layer.visible = true
  #    1. call Podium;
  # Podium;;render
  # or 2. add a Scene;
  # Sketchup.active_model.pages.add_page(...)
  # or 3. write an image;
  # Sketchup.active_model.active_view.write_image(...)
  layer.visible = false
end

walzo

Thank you so much Jim! Much appreciated.

I threw that code in a script file, along with a menu item definition, but for some reason it's not executing anything. The menu item shows up, but it doesn't run anything. Here's the whole .rb file:

require 'sketchup.rb'

def RenderbyLayer

	# Set all Layers not visible

	for layer in Sketchup.active_model.layers
		layer.visible = false
	end

	# Iterate Layers, show next Layer, then
	# either create a Scene, or export and image.

	for layer in Sketchup.active_model.layers
		layer.visible = true
		Podium;;render
		layer.visible = false
	end

end

unless file_loaded?("renderbylayer.rb")
	file_loaded("renderbylayer.rb")
	add_separator_to_menu("File")
	UI.menu("File").add_item("Render by Layer using Podium") { RenderbyLayer }
end

I have Podium v2 loaded, and I've used the Podium::render command successfully before, but not this time round. Any more suggestions? If you have a moment...

Thanks, O

walzo

Update: Seems as though the name of the action 'RenderbyLayer' was the problem. I switched it and it worked fine! I wonder why.

A tip for anyone else trying to script Podium renders:
The Podium Rendering Manager gives an error 'File not found' if it receives more than one request per second. This seems to result from its naming convention, which uses a time code. I inserted a the command 'sleep(1)' into the script for each layer, pausing it for one second and preventing the error. Maybe there's a better way to do this, but it worked!

Dan Rathbun

@walzo said:

Update: Seems as though the name of the action 'RenderbyLayer' was the problem. I switched it and it worked fine! I wonder why.

Because your script is not wrapped in a module namespace, your method name may have conflicted with some one else's.

It's OK to run a script like that for testing (gettin' it workin',) but it should be module wrapped. How about module Walzo ??

@walzo said:

I inserted the command ' sleep(1)' into the script for each layer, pausing it for one second and preventing the error. Maybe there's a better way to do this, but it worked!

If it works it's OK... Kernel.sleep() may not have worked well in earlier Ruby versions.

The Sketchup API also has a timed execution block called UI.start_timer(secs,repeat) { .. your code here ..} SU 8.x allows the secs arg to be fractional, 7.x and earlier rounds the number up to the next integer second. So it should work for this script just fine.

Dan Rathbun

BTW... the script should make a temp hash with layer names as the keys and visibility as the values. This should store the visible state of layers before rendering starts.

.. do your thing ...

.. then restore the visibilty state for all layers at the end.