[Plugin] Sketchup Ivy

[solo]

Thanks.

Okay it works fine. I will wait for the leaves however as at moment it looks like a growing spider.

A GUI would be awesome and if qnything like Ivy generator which can follow a profile like an arch would also be brilliant, as well as gravity/adhesive controls

Great start.

[thomthom]

Very interesting project. I'll give it a whirl when I get time and maybe poke about in the code. Ivy generator is something I've wished I had on several projects.

[Gaieus]

Hi Pierre and indeed it seems to be a very exciting project.

I've been making ivy with the fur plugin so far but a more straightforward and "real" ivy generator would be much better of course!

Any chance to attaching the file straight to the first post though? Some member have issues with this, others with that file hosting services (some are not accessible in certain countries) etc.

(Surely I cannot tella script author where to host his plugin - just suggestions for easier use)

[tomislavm]

Thank You!

[Alan Fraser]

Very interesting start. Just to get the coder's cog wheel whirring; you realise of course that a random growth generator has implications way beyond just ivy? Especially if it has a GUI that allows you to control variables like the upper limit of vector change, the amount of branching and taper, number of segments per limb etc.
Obviously, Follow Me won't follow a branching path...but there is a Max plugin called Branches that generates a single, random, tapering limb. What you then do is click on a joint higher up; and it shoots off another branch, taking the overall scale of this offshoot to be based on the now (reduced) diameter of the original limb at that point. Now that would be really something.

[Edit} 20 minutes, 1 cup of coffee and 1 V-Ray render later. This is a very useful plugin, even in it's early stages.

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tree.skp

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[Pierreden]

Wow. Thanks for all the replies!

@Gaieus: Of course. But is it possible to attach a rar file directly to the post?

@Alan: Yes. That seems brilliant! (one day It really seems like this Ivy algorithm has a lot of potential (way beyond ivy). And in regards to what you said about gui, this is what i have in mind.It is scene-aware and quite easy to customize. Last night I rewrote a chunk of it , added an external force (wind, comming from the sun) and tried to make it a bit more aware of the scene. After some tweaking it realy looks like a good Fur plugin - (screenshots below). I guess it wouldnt be too hard to make it in to a tree growing algorithm og even combine these into a powerpack of branching awesomeness.

Regards
Pierre

[thomthom]

@pierreden said:

@Gaieus: Of course. But is it possible to attach a rar file directly to the post?

Yes - under the textbox when you write a post there is an "Upload attachment" tab where you can upload files.

[Pierreden]

@thomthom said:

@pierreden said:

@Gaieus: Of course. But is it possible to attach a rar file directly to the post?

Yes - under the textbox when you write a post there is an "Upload attachment" tab where you can upload files.

Hehe, sorry about that. Latskap.

[Gaieus]

And I have just checked; the extension "rar" is also allowed (I thought maybe that's the problem).

[Sergio Morera]

Thank you for your generosity. I look forward to give it a try

[Didier Bur]

Hi,

Very interesting. Two remarks/questions: lots of branches have their faces reversed. Do you think this will be fixed in a future release ?
Do I have to play with the parameters to make it 'grow', as it seems to 'fall' more than to climb ?
Regards,

[Oxer]

Hi,
A very interesting plugin, i have used Ivy Generator by Thomas Luft but it's better if you can make ivy into Sketchup directly.
I use Mac and the plugin don't works on OSX, i hope that you can solved this problem.
Bye and congratulations for this promising plugin.

This is a unfinished old project, i would like make this into SU directly.

[robert111]

can anyone make tuto for this nice plugin plzzzzzzzzzzz

thanks robert

[andre51]

Great plugin! Thanks a lot

[Pierreden]

@didier bur said:

Hi,

Very interesting. Two remarks/questions: lots of branches have their faces reversed. Do you think this will be fixed in a future release ?
Do I have to play with the parameters to make it 'grow', as it seems to 'fall' more than to climb ?
Regards,

I think both off these issues have been fixed in the v.0.1 release

@Oxer:
I can take a look at it. If you could PM me the error output in the ruby console it would be of great help! ("windows" > "Ruby console" inside sketchup and then try to make a new Ivy with this window open and copy the error message)

[Oxer]

I probe the plugin again and don't works, the Console window appears blank and happens nothing.

Sorry Pierreden but i would like help you more, if there are another mac users please comment about the use of the plugin on Mac OSX.

[Alan Fraser]

Some great improvements there...and pretty easy to customise (I doubled the float length). One issue I have on my system is that when the progress meter hits 100% I still can't see the red latent growth path. It's only visible from certain very specific angles, so I have to keep constantly orbiting to a new position to see where it's up to. I have the latest graphic drivers. It's no biggee, but I thought I'd mention it.

[notareal]

Interesting project. I am sure that this has more potent than just to grow a ivy.

[thomthom]

@alan fraser said:

Some great improvements there...and pretty easy to customise (I doubled the float length). One issue I have on my system is that when the progress meter hits 100% I still can't see the red latent growth path. It's only visible from certain very specific angles, so I have to keep constantly orbiting to a new position to see where it's up to. I have the latest graphic drivers. It's no biggee, but I thought I'd mention it.

That's probably because the tool doesn't implement the Tool.get_extent method: http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/ourdoc/tool.html#getExtents

@Pierreden: Beware that adding methods into the base classes risk running into conflicts with other plugins. It's the same as adding methods to the root namespace - everything is shared. Method names such as .to_v, .to_p, .all_faces could potentially be used by other plugins authors.
Even though it looks nicer to extend the base classes there always is a risk of clashes. I always advice people to void it just to be on the safe side.

[Lobster]

Hi,

Looks really interesting but I too have a problem on a Mac OSX 10.6.6. Sketchup 8.

There is no output in the console window showing fault after choosing/ticking in the plugin list and clicking on a surface.

The extraction of the .rar seemed fine and i have the folder and .rb file in the correct directory. I presume that the files remain in the Sketchupivy folder?

Regards

Sam