SU 9 Wishlist

[fuzzion]

@jbacus said:

We are hiring Software Engineers in Boulder, if you'd like to apply:

What I mean Jbacus, is that YOU should handpick some of our top plugin makers that show desire to innovate and propel by personally sending an Email to those that you think have talent. Remember, most of the Industries gifted programmers are either drop outs or self taught Geniuses

I.e. Bill Gates,John Carmack, etc.

[davidheim1]

Solid Components that work with more than 2 components at once.
daviod

[davidlouis]

I am trying to do some solar analysis animations on a building and have set up a view with a series of dates and times during the year.
I now want to change the view in question but keep all the settings for dates and times but can't...

I would thus like to see a function where one might be able to:

1.Overide/update all scenes with current viewpoint (thus keeping date and time info as already set)
2.Overide / update all date and time info for project scenes / views with a single set of settings so as to avoid having to switch through each one and update manually...

If there is a way of doing the above.... please someone enlighten me.

Thanks

Dave

[jbacus]

@fuzzion said:

@jbacus said:

We are hiring Software Engineers in Boulder, if you'd like to apply:

What I mean Jbacus, is that YOU should handpick some of our top plugin makers that show desire to innovate and propel by personally sending an Email to those that you think have talent. Remember, most of the Industries gifted programmers are either drop outs or self taught Geniuses

I.e. Bill Gates,John Carmack, etc.

For what it is worth, I don't have a Phd in CompSci either... I have an BArch from Cooper Union and an MArch from Rice University. The SketchUp team is populated by a wide range of folks with unusual backgrounds by Google standards– Lighting, structural and architectural engineers are much more common on our team than pure CompSci folks. No need to argue the merits of looking for talent outside the box to me.

Historically, we have brought on gifted Ruby developers (remember Dynamic Components?) who came up with cool add-ons for SketchUp. We may do it again in the future if that is the most efficient way to launch new features that we think everyone will benefit from having in SketchUp.

john
.

[TIG]

@davidlouis said:

I am trying to do some solar analysis animations on a building and have set up a view with a series of dates and times during the year.
I now want to change the view in question but keep all the settings for dates and times but can't...

I would thus like to see a function where one might be able to:

1.Overide/update all scenes with current viewpoint (thus keeping date and time info as already set)
2.Overide / update all date and time info for project scenes / views with a single set of settings so as to avoid having to switch through each one and update manually...

If there is a way of doing the above.... please someone enlighten me.

Thanks

Dave
Use Scene Manager and bulk-edit selected Scenes so certain aspects don't update...

[jgb]

I've mentioned this before, elsewhere.....

Make SU aware of extra mouse buttons.

Wheels are now standard with side motion; SU is oblivious to that.

My Logitech MX 600 has a total of 10 button/wheel actions.
2 main buttons, wheel rotation, wheel down, wheel left/right, zoom in/out, plus 3 other buttons that I have programmed for various functions, such as double click and browser back.

SU only recognizes 4, 2 main, wheel rotation and wheel down. It does recognize my double click (left) button, but only because the mouse sends it out as a double click.

I have also made significant use of keyboard shortcuts, using almost all the keys my left hand can pick easily, but here again I am faced with an SU shortcoming.

SU only recognizes Shift, Ctrl and Alt as extender buttons.

There is also the Tab and the Windows keys that can be used as extenders, as they have no other function in SU.

I would really like to be able to use some other extender key to duplicate the R,G & B arrow keys on the left side of the KB.

[watkins]

Separate Erase and Hide on the right click menu. Having them one beneath the other can cause problems when modelling in a hurry (the apparent response to each is the same). I have come unstuck a couple of times recently. Perhaps I'm getting old.

Regards,
Bob

[TIG]

@watkins said:

Separate Erase and Hide on the right click menu. Having them one beneath the other can cause problems when modelling in a hurry (the apparent response to each is the same). I have come unstuck a couple of times recently. Perhaps I'm getting old.
Regards,
Bob

Better to set shortcut-keys that are clearly different - then no errors........

[watkins]

Dear TIG,

I remembered your penchant for short-cut keys, and so that is what I have done. I had a similar problem with the save and send icons when using Outlook, until I separated them on the toolbar.

Regards,
Bob

[ArCAD-UK]

Just a little request, doesn't even need a new button. Why when you make a section cut does the action only return model info which is BELOW the section plane and not BELOW & EQUAL to the section plane?

Changing this would remove the need to tweak a "Create group from slice" down by a tiny fraction to make it visible for "solidifying" cuts and adding dimensions.

This has bugged me for years!

[Gaieus]

TIG has a "SectionCutFace" plugin that utilizes this group from slice + already fills the faces + moves this group a little bit mack so that you can see it.

You are right however. This plugin is necessarily inaccurate a little bit. A very cool plugin however.

[ArCAD-UK]

@gaieus said:

TIG has a "SectionCutFace" plugin that utilizes this group from slice + already fills the faces + moves this group a little bit mack so that you can see it.

Already one of my must have plugins from way back, but sometimes I just want the lines and having the slice appear without adjustment would naturally simplify the drawing process and TIG could then remove his 0.2mm offset.

[TIG]

@arcad-uk said:

@gaieus said:

TIG has a "SectionCutFace" plugin that utilizes this group from slice + already fills the faces + moves this group a little bit mack so that you can see it.

Already one of my must have plugins from way back, but sometimes I just want the lines and having the slice appear without adjustment would naturally simplify the drawing process and TIG could then remove his 0.2mm offset.

If all you want is all of the line-work associated with a SectionCut it's built in.
Select just the Section Plane and right-click context-menu 'Make Group from Section'.
A group is made containing the line exactly over the originals.
Switch off the SectionCut to see the lines and edit/use them etc

[ArCAD-UK]

@tig said:

If all you want is all of the line-work associated with a SectionCut it's built in.
Select just the Section Plane and right-click context-menu 'Make Group from Section'.
A group is made containing the line exactly over the originals.
Switch off the SectionCut to see the lines and edit/use them etc
This is where the core S.U. program needs fixing TIG. If the section is active the resulting slice lines/edges are hidden and deactivating the cut the lines merge with the rest of the model. There are many work arounds but it just seems to me that the current arrangement of not displaying the slice because it is coincident with the section plane desn't make sense in CAD world?

[TIG]

That's why I move it a tiny distance into the view so you can see it...
If you want lines only for my SectionCutFace group you can make it 'keeping all edges', then edit it [double-click] and with View > Component Edit > Hide Rest of Model you ban best see what you are doing... Then select all and use one of the several tools to deselect the edges and 'delete'. Now you just have edges. I suppose I could adjust my code to has a <None> option under face material so all faces are auto-deleted for you

[Gaieus]

Yes TIG but what he is saying is that it would be betterif you didn't need to move your face back a bit and SU would (still) display what is exactly on the cut (rather than hiding it already).

To me, it would sound logical, too.

[ArCAD-UK]

@tig said:

I suppose I could adjust my code to has a <None> option under face material so all faces are auto-deleted for you

Your app works just fine as is TIG, no criticism intended! As Gaieus has recognised it would be logical for the S.U. section process to make that little change from < to <= in the display calculation and bring many benefits with no negatives to the drawing process.

[TIG]

I've tweaked SectionCutFace to v2.5 here http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=315619#p315619
'<No_Face>' option added, so you get just lines without faces.
'Lock Cut' option added.
A class test replaces typename, optimizing speed.

[publied]

I was thinking to multithreading and 64-bit supports. But it would not hurt to have even support to Android. So we have SU for Tablet PCs and Linux. Not so bad.

[2Harry2]

1. The ability to force a snap to a specific point, especially a mid-point or circle center, instead of having to estimate by eye and hover the cursor over your best guess, which sometimes takes a while, and sometimes doesn't seem to work at all.

2. Making the zoom function behave logically when the cursor is over empty space (as someone else already pointed out)

3. Allowing construction line placement to snap to points not on the plane of the construction line